


such great heights

by nyaatalie



Category: Fifth Harmony (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Drama & Romance, F/F, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 07:25:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12294195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyaatalie/pseuds/nyaatalie
Summary: When Lauren Jauregui volunteers to upload her brain onto a computer, lay dormant for two centuries, and awaken in the future in her own body again, it seems like a fascinating opportunity. But when she wakes up two hundred years in the future disassociated from reality and numb, only one girl is able to help her feel again.





	1. Chapter 1

"Test Subject 27 regaining consciousness."

The sounds of monitors beeping along with doctors and scientists speaking in loud volumes leads to a rude awakening. A bright beam of light shines in Lauren's eyes, alternating back and forth between the two. A lot of the words that come out of the mouths of the people observing her are muffled. What she does pick up is mostly medical jargon, but some of it can be understood.

"Pupil response positive."

"Heart rate 83 beats per minute."

"Blood pressure 86/60, appears slightly hypotensive."

"Normal BP reading 118/20. Other subjects are also waking up with temporary hypotension that goes away."

Even processing words like "hypotension," something that she could have easily understood any other day, strains her. Gloved hands poke and prod at her skin. She doesn't even feel human; this makes her feel like a lab rat. Is she allowed to complain, though? After all, she did sign up for this.

200 years ago, at least.

****

Year 2018. Lauren Jauregui had just recently graduated college from the University of California, Los Angeles with BA in Psychology. Simply a Bachelor's degree in that major was not nearly enough to secure any decent job, though. She would have to go on to get a Master's degree at the very least. Unfortunately, as a UC school, UCLA provided barely any financial aid to her as a student from out of state. It didn't help that her parents also had to deal with paying for Taylor and Chris' schooling. There was no way she could ask her parents for more money unless she wanted to send them into bankruptcy. Neck deep in debt and completely out of options, Lauren thought she would be forced to move back in with her parents and find a job at the local McDonalds for a few years before she could even think about returning to school.

And then a unique opportunity presented itself to her.

A week before she was going to be evicted from her apartment in LA, she received a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services. The content of the letter went along the lines of that she had met the criteria to be a part of an opportunity that would benefit not only her life, but the lives of millions of Americans forever. It would be life-changing. Her name would go down in history, and she would be paid for it. It almost seemed like a prank. Something that someone sent to her as a sick joke who knew that she was struggling financially. However, the seal on the letter was real. The address was legitimate, as was the name that was signed at the bottom of the paper.

She was to meet them at their headquarters in the city the next day promptly at 6 AM. With almost nothing to lose since she was already at rock bottom, Lauren decided to go.

Upon arriving at the large building marked as the HQ for the Department of Health and Human Services the next day, Lauren gave her name to the secretary and was immediately escorted by an important looking woman through a confusing path full of twists and turns. Several doors, elevators, and escalators later, they arrived at what appeared to be a secret wing located in the basement marked "Department of Futurology."

If it hadn't been for the fact that this was the official government building, Lauren would have been positive that this was all a joke. What the hell is the Department of Futurology, and why hadn't there been any news about it? Or at least, any leaked information? She remembered how WikiLeaks exposed tons of top secret information a couple years. Surely, if this department was legitimate, something would have leaked by now.

Lauren was led to the office that belonged to the head of the department. What he told her seemed unreal. It seemed like something out of a science-fiction movie. There was no way this was a real thing. Perhaps they were conducting some sort of strange social experiment on her to see how far they could make up bullshit before the person stopped believing it.

But after she expressed her disbelief and was led to a room full of test subjects who had already agreed to be a part of the experiment, there was no denying it any further. This was real. The Department of Futurology was real. And she was chosen for this. Out of billions of people, she was one of the 100 selected.

The experiment was presented to her under a code name: Project Cicada. Although Lauren had initially recoiled merely at the name of it, once the meaning was explained to her, she understood. Cicadas symbolize re-birth. Resurrection. Change. Cicadas sleep underground, waiting for the correct time to emerge and help their families.

How does that apply to the goal of the experiment? Project Cicada is focused on the possibilities of "time travel." Immortality. Reaching what the scientific community once brushed off as impossible.

Explaining the process itself took over an hour. Simply put, scientists are going to upload data from Lauren's brain onto a computer using brain-to-computer interfaces, electrodes, and advanced mapping technologies. Neurons from her brain that compose her personality, memories, and conscience will be transferred to the computer, while other components of the brain that are vital to her bodily functions won't be touched.

Her body will then be preserved through a special process called "suspended animation." It's not cryogenics- there won't be any frozen bodies or brains lying around the labs. This had been currently used in select hospitals to prevent extreme losses of blood in severe trauma patients. However, most patients in suspended animation could only last a couple hours. Scientists and doctors in this top secret facility have advanced the process to last years. And after a few years, they simply repeat the suspension several times until it isn't needed any more.

A saline solution will be pumped through her heart and into her entire body, chilling it to a temperature around 50 degrees Fahrenheit–this reduced temperature allows cells to receive less oxygen due to the slowing of chemical reactions in the body. Then, to elongate the process as required for the experiment, a special drug will be administered that is designed to preserve the body. With all of this, Lauren won't be dead. Her body will still function and her personality will exist in a computer, to be uploaded back to her brain in a hundred years or so when the technologies for re-uploading are perfected to reduce any potential error.

They explained that they performed a miniature version of this on rats that lasted for a year, and everything went smoothly. Agreeing to be a part of this experiment is certainly a risk, though. Although the scientists hate to admit it, there's clearly the possibility of everything failing miserably. Lauren could be signing a waiver to her own death. However, if it works, the incentives are almost too good to pass.

When Lauren is "reborn" in the future, all of her crippling debt from college will disappear. The government will pay for her to attend any future schooling, and she's guaranteed admission to practically any university she desires. She will be provided a high-end apartment upon waking up, along with a luxury car, lots of insurance, and a $1,000,000 check without taxes. But the perks don't stop there. If she agrees to participate, the government will erase any debt that her family has. Her siblings' tuitions will be covered fully, and they will receive their own check for $1,000,000.

For her, the choice was obvious. Hell, it may even be selfish to not take it. Agreeing to participate in this will erase all of her problems. It will help her family out for the rest of their lives. And it will push the limits of science. Thanks to her, technology will reach heights that no one could have possibly imagined.

It's either this, or return to her bleak reality full of debt and hopelessness.

They offered to give her alone time to think about her decision, but she didn't need to ponder this for a second longer. She agreed to begin immediately.

Before they began the long process of brain mapping and uploading, Lauren was given the opportunity to write a message to her family. The government explained that they would meet with her family, deliver the message, and briefly explain the experiment to them. She was left alone in the room with a pen and paper to write out her final words and goodbyes.

With a shaky hand, she wrote:

"Mom & Dad,

I trust that they explained everything about Project Cicada thoroughly. They probably only explained the logic and science side of things, though. I want you to understand the emotional side of this, my thought process, and everything. I want you to know why I'm doing this.

I don't know if this is an act of selfishness or selflessness. I like to think the latter. You're going to get so much money from this. Dad, you can finally get that Ferrari you always talked about to me. Mom, you can finally quit your job as a teacher. You can get that beach house in Hawaii. You all can go to Atlantis again so many times, I know how much fun we had together there. Chris and Tay won't have to pay a single cent for their overpriced education, just as it should be. But that's all materialistic bullshit (sorry for my language) to an extent. I can already hear you saying that you'd trade another day with me for all of that.

This is going to make everything okay for all of us though. I promise. It's going to pay off in the end. If I didn't agree to this, I'd be moving back in with you next week. I'd be searching for pathetic minimum wage jobs where I'd barely be able to pay for groceries. I'd be stuck for years, and I know that you want more for me. I want more for me. That, along with how much debt you'd be in with Chris and Tay's tuitions added up...we wouldn't be happy. I know that money doesn't equate to happiness and it pisses me off how much of society revolves around something as superficial as that. But it's the reality that we have to face.

Maybe it's a mix of selfishness and selflessness. I'm selfless for donating my body to science in order for your lives to improve...but I'm selfish for robbing you of your own daughter.

Please don't do anything stupid like refuse the money, or throw it in the trash out of anger/denial. Please don't let what I'm doing go to waste. I love you so much. I can't imagine the shock you must feel to hear that your own daughter's brain is currently on a computer and her body is suspended in the basement of some government facility...

When I wake up (yes, when– I'm being optimistic and so should you), it's going to be at least 100 years in the future. Just think about it. That's so insane. I'll wake up to a world with even more advanced technologies. Maybe there'll finally be self-driving cars and a society that isn't so judgmental and discriminating of people who are different. Maybe racism, homophobia, and transphobia will be eradicated at last.

I wish that I could take you into the better future with me. I love you. I love you. I love you. Don't forget that. I don't want to make this harder than it already is. I love you.

Chris & Tay,

My little nuggets...yes, Chris, I know you hate being called that but you're my nugget and you have to accept it whether you like it or not. It absolutely devastates me that I won't be able to look after the two of you anymore. I know you're both adults, but you're still my baby brother and sister in my heart.

I understand if you're mad at me for doing this. I understand if you feel like I've abandoned you. I already feel guilty about it. I'm not going to be able to attend your weddings or even see your future children...I know they'll be beautiful, though. Marry someone who has a soul that yours connects with like none other. And if anyone breaks your heart, just know that I'm beating them up in spirit.

I believe in both of you with all of my heart. I've watched you grow from little children into young adults. You've made it so far, and you're going to go even farther. Pursue your dreams. Let that flame of passion in your hearts turn into an unstoppable fire. Don't let anyone damper your aspirations and don't you dare change to conform to what anyone else wants you to be.

The hardest part about this isn't gambling life vs. death. It's leaving you. It's knowing that I'm not going to be present for your most important moments. But I promise, the risk is worth the reward. Your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and etc. will benefit forever from this. And I promise that I'll try to find them when I wake them up and tell them all about how lovely you were.

I love you so much. There's so much more that I want to say. I wish that I could hug all of you for hours, spend just one more day with you before I have to go...but I have to do this now.

Please believe in me and trust me. I love you endlessly.

Love,

Lauren"

She wiped the tears that left streaks down her cheeks, handed the finished letter to the head of the department, and was escorted into the lab to begin the process.

As the last of her conscience was uploaded into the computer, Lauren felt herself drift into the 200 year nap.

****

Her slumber didn't feel like it lasted 200 years. There is no gaping hole in her memory. It was like any other slumber without any dreams. Just as one doesn't hold any recollection of a conscience before being born, Lauren holds no physical recollection of being absent from the world for such a long amount of time.

Waking up from suspended animation is more disorienting than waking up from actual sleep, which is understandable - after all, her brain data was removed and then re-uploaded. Also, the process of suspended animation is highly physically taxing. Lauren isn't sure how many times the doctors were forced to resuscitate her body and re-suspend it.

As the doctors continue to examine Lauren, she ponders about what the process of repeating the suspended animation cycle was like. While her personality and conscience components of her brain were absent, everything else in the brain wasn't touched in order for the body to function on its own. She wonders if, when the doctors temporarily resuscitated her suspended body in order to keep it from dying for real, her body "woke up" per se. As in, was her empty body responsive as if she was actually alive, even though it wasn't really her? Was there some other personality that developed for those brief moments of life, or would the body wake up in a vegetative, non-responsive state?

It's likely latter. But this is the first time any experiment like this has been performed on a human body. Who knows how the brain responds to its data being lost? What if the brain is like a computer and tries to fix itself? Lauren could ask, but with the combination of her disorientation and fear of the answer, she decides against it. She's awake. She's alive again. That's all that matters, and that's all that should matter.

"Please state your full name for us," one of the doctors finally addresses her directly, snapping her into reality.

The answer pops in her head immediately. She hasn't forgotten who she is.She isn't suffering from amnesia. But she hasn't spoken in centuries. It feels like the saliva ducts in her mouth have stopped working...or perhaps they haven't started yet. It's not that she has forgotten how to move her joints, open her jaw, and speak a couple words. It just feels distant. Unfamiliar, even.

Once she opens her mouth and starts to speak, it feels normal again.

"Lauren Michelle Jauregui."

She recognizes the voice that exits her throat. It's the one she has spoken with for all 22 years of her conscious life. It's her's, just raspy and a bit weak for now. Part of her was worried that when she spoke, some stranger's voice would talk instead.

Lauren harbored worries about being uploaded into the wrong body. As they were mapping her brain at the beginning of this experiment all those years ago, she remembers wondering what could go wrong besides death. What if they lost her body? What if they mixed up data and accidentally uploaded her into the wrong one, and she saw someone else waking up in her real body across the room?

Her worrying is interrupted. After the doctors and scientists finish scribbling on their clipboards, they continue to ask Lauren simple questions to test her memory.

"Where were you born?"

"Miami, Florida."

"What is your full birth date?"

"June 27, 1996."

"Where did you attend college?"

"UCLA."

"State the names of your parents and any siblings."

This question reminds her of her family. She didn't forget they existed- they just weren't at the top of her mind upon waking up. Lauren is reminded that they are far gone. They died over a hundred years ago. Whether her siblings have any children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren living by any chance is beyond her knowledge. Despite the harsh reminder of her loved ones being dead, Lauren doesn't feel sadness. There's a part of her that tells her that she should feel upset. Normally, she would tear up at this information. Lord knows that enough of her tears stained the page where she wrote her final goodbyes to her family. Yet right now, she feels numb.

So she answers without any hesitation.

"Clara and Michael Jauregui were my parents. Chris and Taylor were my younger brother and sister."

A collective nod from the group observing her tells her that her answers were correct. Not that she doubted any of it for a minute. Her memory is impeccable and there's nothing missing, as far as she can tell. She knows who she is. She knows what this is for. She remembers all of the details about Project Cicada. A bit impatiently, Lauren wonders to herself how many more tests the doctors and scientists will perform on her before she can leave.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lauren watches one of the doctors retrieve an alarmingly large syringe filled with a clear liquid. Her eyes widen at the sight of it and she instinctively recoils; she's never been a fan of receiving shots.

"What is that?" she questions skeptically. Lauren has always been the patient at the doctor's office who constantly interrogates the physician through every step of the checkup. She likes to know how she is being treated and what exactly goes into her body.

"A solution that will quickly provide your body with the nutrients necessary so that we can draw blood for some tests without making you pass out," the doctor preparing the syringe explains. "It will be administered through your spine, so this is going to hurt a bit."

Great, just the words she wanted to hear. As she rotates her body and feels the thin fabric of the hospital gown on her back being pushed aside, she shuts her eyes tightly, gripping the side of the bed and preparing for the pain.

Five seconds pass. Ten. The anticipation is grueling. Why can't the doctors just rip the metaphorical bandage off and get it over with? Maybe they have to be extra careful since it's a spinal injection.

"You can lay back down," the doctor informs her. Lauren opens her eyes to see him putting the now-empty syringe back on the table.

"Wait, you already injected it?" she furrows her eyebrows.

"Yes."

"I didn't feel anything..." Lauren frowns. Not that she wanted to feel pain in the first place. It's just strange that they would warn her about the impending pain before giving her the shot, and then for her not to feel even a pinch. All she felt were the brushes of latex-gloved hands against her bare skin.

Although she feels as though something is going wrong, the doctors appear unconcerned as they scribble something onto their clipboards. In fact, it's as if they were expecting this response. How strange. What would their motivations be behind lying about something like that?

"Um...was that supposed to happen? Was I supposed to not feel anything?" Lauren pushes further. When she was presented with the experiment, one of her main concerns regarded the scientist-subject transparency. The head of the project assured her that she would be well-informed of every step along the way, and no medical or scientific motivations would be hidden from them. So she feels entitled to the answers to all of her questions.

"When we tested this nutrient solution on a control – someone not directly part of the experiment – they reported significant amounts of pain. The spine is sensitive, Compared to the other test subjects, your response is not abnormal. In fact, it is the same. None of the test subjects feel the pain of the injection. After we run some blood tests, we'll perform a few more tests for this. We'll let the solution spread for a half hour, draw your blood, then run the tests. We'll analyze all of the data from all the different tests we've been running, give you a run-through of everything, then let you go," the doctor explains thoroughly.

Lauren absorbs the information slowly, nodding her head as it is explained to her. As the crowd of doctors and scientists finally leave her room, giving her the first moments of solitude since she woke up, the abnormality of her reality hits her.

Somehow, defying everything that modern science and technology thought were possible, Lauren's conscience existed dormant in a computer for two centuries. Her suspended body was continuously resuscitated and then re-suspended, preserving it for all those years. There must have been at least three or four different cycles of scientists and doctors who observed her over all those years. The people who originally created this experiment and its technology are long dead- they won't even be able to witness their accomplishments that are about to revolutionize the future of science forever. And she is a part of it. She is one of the few pioneers of this experiment.

With all of the people who had been poking, prodding, and interrogating her, Lauren never got the chance to even observe her own surroundings. This location is different from where she last remembers being conscious. She has her own private room akin to a hospital room, but nicer. The walls are white with some type of light hardwood flooring, a cream-colored carpet seated under the bed. Lauren assumes that she is still in the basement of the same facility, as there are no windows and no source of natural light.

Her bed isn't like a hospital bed. It's a typical bed that you would find in someone's bedroom. White mattress, white sheets, white duvet, white pillows. Clearly whoever decorated these rooms had been going for practicality, not aesthetic. At the end of her bed sits several tables with medical equipment, which distinguish this room from a normal bedroom. Next to her bed stands a portable IV with the needle stuck in her left arm.

Lauren's eyes locate an object in the far corner of the room she had been desiring. A mirror. It's a small mirror, only enough to be able to see your reflection from the chest up. But that's all she needs to see right now. She wants to confirm that this is her body. Sure, her voice exited her throat, but what if that was her brain playing tricks? Hell, part of her doesn't even feel like this is real.

Part of her feels like this is a dream. Every sense her body experiences feels hazy. Her senses feel...dulled. She feels as if this could be some sort of false reality. Perhaps her brain data still resides inside of a computer, and it developed itself enough to fabricate this false awakening into "reality." Or maybe this is the afterlife.

She doesn't allow herself to doubt too much. There's no way that she could obtain the answers to those questions, and if she dwells on them, they might consume and destroy her. If she makes it to the mirror, looks at her reflection, and sees herself as she should be, then she'll be assured that this is real. No matter how much her body wants to tell her otherwise, she'll push the thoughts away and let herself live.

Lauren is certain that the doctors wouldn't be happy with her getting out of bed on her own and trying to walk. But she's going to go through with it anyway. She's a strong, determined girl. When she sets her mind on a goal, she will persevere until she achieves it.

The nutrient solution must be kicking in a little. Her muscles feel stronger and rejuvenated to an extent. Sitting up and swinging her legs off of the bed one at a time, she grasps the IV stand. Lauren glances at her arm, noting how pale it is. She's as white as porcelain. Normally, her skin has some color from the sun. Refocusing herself on her goal, she slowly hoists herself off of the bed, putting pressure into one leg at a time.

Now standing on two feet, her legs wobble uncontrollably. Her knees lock, and she knows that this was a bad idea from the start. Even after her damn tonsillectomy she got as a child, one of the least invasive and minor surgeries to exist, the nurses insisted on helping her stand up afterward. What possessed her to think that she would be able to stand up on her own now?

Lauren hits the ground with a thud, taking the IV stand down with her that produces an even louder sound as it impacts the floor. Despite her body falling against the hardwood, she still feels no pain. Laying helplessly on the ground staring at the fallen IV drip next to her, she wonders if anyone heard, or if she'll be left here until they finally return to draw her blood.

Not even two seconds later, the door opens. A figure that Lauren hasn't seen before enters the room quickly. She isn't dressed in scrubs or a lab coat like everyone else she has encountered so far, so she can't be a scientist or a doctor. Perhaps she is a test subject? No, she doubts that they would allow the test subjects to freely roam the halls themselves. She doesn't even know if there are other test subjects near her at the moment.

The young woman who entered is short enough to be a middle schooler, yet her mature demeanor and face tell Lauren that she is probably around her age. She wears regular clothes with a name tag pinned at the top of her shirt. It reads: "Ally Hernandez, Caretaker." Caretaker? She doesn't recall being told about any sort of caretakers when she was initially presented the concept of this experiment.

Upon registering that Lauren has fallen onto the ground, Ally hurries to her assistance, kneeling down next to her with a worried expression.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay? What happened?" she asks, her hands cautiously hovering over Lauren as if she isn't sure if she is allowed to help her or not.

"I'm fine," Lauren responds. It's the truth- normally a fall like this would leave her sore for a bit afterward, but she feels okay physically. "I was trying to get out of bed by myself. Stupid idea. Don't know why I even tried it...can you please help me stand up?"

Despite being explicitly asked for help, Ally still hesitates. Her hands continue to hover over the fallen girl without ever touching her. Lauren assumes that she is afraid of breaking her further. She assumes that Ally thinks she has bones made of glass, and that she will shatter upon being handled in the wrong manner.

"You don't need to worry about hurting me. I'm not in any pain...in fact, I can't even feel pain, so..." Lauren shrugs.

"That's not the problem," Ally sighs, shaking her head. "I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do this... see, I don't think I'm even allowed to be in here in the first place. I was just walking down the hall, I heard a thud so I came to investigate it and found you here on the floor...I don't think they wanted you knowing about me until later."

Everything that the woman says doesn't make any sense. Her name tag explicitly states "caretaker," shouldn't she be obligated to help her? Lauren figured that the role was synonymous to a nurse.

"Oh," is all Lauren can muster up for a response.

Witnessing this weakened girl on the ground, helpless and unable to stand up on her own, strikes a chord in Ally's good-natured heart. So what if she doesn't have permission to be in here? It would be immoral to leave Lauren on the ground, even if the scientists didn't want the test subjects to be aware of caretakers yet.

She may be small, but she's strong. Wrapping her arms around Lauren, Ally hoists her back onto the bed, while also minding the IV. She wouldn't want to accidentally tear it out of her arm or anything. With Lauren now situated safely on the bed, Ally picks up the mobile IV drip that had fallen and stands it up next to the bed in its original position.

"Stupid. I'm so stupid," Lauren mutters under her breath. She feels somewhat defeated from not being able to complete a task that should come naturally to her. "Thank you, though."

"You're welcome," Ally smiles. "You're not stupid. You were 'asleep' for 200 years... of course it's going to be a little difficult for a bit of time for you to readjust yourself to the world. Please don't beat yourself up over it."

Ally has a kind heart–reassuring, consoling, and helping someone through a rough time in their life has always come naturally to her. The caretaker position was a perfect opportunity for her to put these traits to use and contribute to something significant.

"Is there anything you want me to do before I leave?" Ally asks. "I'd stay, but I think I'll get in trouble if I do."

If it had been anyone else, like one of the doctors or scientists, Lauren would feel uncomfortable. She would never willingly admit that the reason she wanted to get out of bed was to look at her own reflection in the mirror to make sure she was still herself. However, with this girl, Lauren feels at ease. A part of her feels like she could divulge her deepest, darkest fears and secrets, and Ally would be more helpful than any psychologist or therapist.

"Could you bring me that mirror over there?" Lauren points to the object of her desire in the corner of the room. "That's what I was trying to do. I was trying to get over there so I could look at myself."

Ally notices Lauren's voice trailing off meekly at the end of her admittance. Her heart breaks for the poor girl. She can't imagine what she is going through. With a nod, she hurries over to the mirror, picks it up off of the wall, and brings it over to the bed.

As Lauren watches the smaller girl approach her with the mirror in hand, her mouth feels drier than before. She isn't ready for this. She has this terrible feeling that a stranger will be looking back at her from the mirror. She's absolutely terrified about the reflection she is about to see. But it's too late to turn back now. Ally and the mirror are already mere feet away from her. She has to do this.

The mirror is held up at Lauren's level so she has a clear, unobstructed view of her reflection. All of her muscles relax and her breathing steadies as she recognizes the person looking back at her.

Like the skin on her arms, her face is the palest she's ever seen it. Underneath her emerald eyes are eye bags, perhaps from malnutrition. Chapped lips aren't an unusual occurrence for Lauren- her full pink lips are chafed as normal. A silver stud resides in her left nostril from the nose piercing she spontaneously received when she was eighteen. Dark brown hair, somehow not greasy, falls down to her mid-back, the length it was before she went under. Her thick, bold eyebrows that had been furrowed with anxiety and concentration relax, and the corners of her mouth turn up in relief.

Despite everything, it's still her.

It's still the face that has stared back at her from the other side of the mirror throughout her entire life. The last time she saw her reflection, her skin was tan and healthy, and she practically glowed with her beauty. Although her appearance is understandably not in the utmost condition, it's still her.

"Thank you," Lauren thanks Ally graciously, smiling at her. "You should go. I don't want to get you in any trouble."

"No problem. I'll be seeing you later."

On her way out, Ally returns the mirror onto its original position on the wall and leaves the room. Lauren crawls back under the covers of the bed, awaiting the return of the doctors and scientists. Having so many tests performed on her certainly isn't fun, but the faster they get done with whatever they want to do, the faster she'll be able to leave.

The doctors and scientists return about twenty minutes later. By then, Lauren can feel the nutrition solution spreading through her body and kicking in. Her muscles feel stronger and she almost feels like she would be able to stand up and walk on her own- obviously after the last attempt, however, she won't be trying this any time soon.

She contemplates the fact that if Ally hadn't been passing through the halls when she fell, she would still be on the ground at this very moment. Despite how much noise the thud must have created, only Ally heard and responded. It's a little messed up- shouldn't they be taking better care of their test subjects? Hell, Ally wasn't even allowed to be in contact with her as far as she's aware. To maintain her pride and also keep the caretaker out of trouble, Lauren avoids mentioning the incident to them.

"We're going to perform a quick pain test on you, draw your blood for a test, and then we're going to walk you to another room to update you about your condition and the next steps in this experiment," one of the doctors informs her as he holds up a small scalpel with a gloved hand. "Your hand, please."

"What are you going to do?" Lauren questions skeptically, refusing to offer her hand until she knows exactly what they plan to do.

"I'm going to make a small cut on your pinky finger. We're going to observe if blood emerges from the wound, how much it bleeds, and if you feel any pain," he says.

Just fell on the hard as fuck floor and didn't feel a thing, but okay, Lauren rolls her eyes internally as the thought runs through her head. She's not going to feel anything, so it doesn't really impact her either way.

Holding out her left hand with her palm facing up, Lauren doesn't wince at the slightest as she watches the doctor drag the small blade across her pinky just enough to make a cut. She feels pressure from the scalpel making contact with her skin, but she doesn't feel any pain. It's strange, watching someone cut into her without hurting at all. A couple droplets of dark crimson blood emerge from the tiny wound, which seems about normal for this minor injury. The doctor studies the wound for only a few seconds before bandaging it tightly.

"I take it from your lack of reaction that you didn't feel anything," the doctor makes his assumption verbally as he puts the scalpel away and picks up a needle for drawing blood.

"You are correct," Lauren sighs. On one hand, this is really cool- it's almost as if she's a superhero! On the other hand, she knows that this is an awful sign. If her pain receptors aren't working, it means that she could severely injure herself and not even notice. If something went wrong internally, she wouldn't be able to tell either. For instance, if her appendix was about to burst, she'd never know until she was dead on the floor with it exploded inside of her.

She might not be able to feel pain, but Lauren still turns her head in the opposite direction of the needle and closes her eyes as they begin to draw her blood. She has never been the biggest fan of blood. Too much gore and she ends up woozy. The first time she ever had her blood drawn, she passed out from watching the thick liquid flow from her arm into the bag.

"Okay, we're done. We're going to stand you up now and have you walk to a room down the hall, not too far," the doctor tells her as he removes the IV from her arm. A few of the scientists approach her from both sides, ready to assist her with standing up from the bed.

Lauren scoots to the edge, her feet dangling off of the bed and touching the hardwood. Though she feels stronger than she did on her first attempt, she is still wary. The difference about this is that there will be people to catch her if she fails. Lifting herself from the bed while also being supported by several doctors' hands on her arms, she begins to stand up.

"Careful. Take it slow. We've had a couple falls today from subjects standing up too quickly," one of the doctors warns her.

Tell me about it, she chuckles to herself at the irony.

She focuses on putting pressure into one leg at a time. In her head, she envisions the strength building from the foot up as she puts pressure down. The imaginary bursts of strength she envisions travels from her foot, to her ankle, to her calf, to her knee, and finally to her thigh. Lauren repeats this process with her right leg until she's successfully standing and being steadied by the doctors.

Her legs don't shake nearly as much as they did during her first attempt. She interprets that as a good sign. Lauren is aware that one of the most important factors in regaining her strength is going to be her attitude. If she were to try to stand up with the mindset that she's going to fail and fall down again, it probably would have happened. No matter how cheesy or cliche it is, the statement that perseverance is key is correct for this scenario.

Finally standing up, she remembers how short she is. Lauren is 5'4", and in theory, this should be about average for females. But in comparison to others, her height feels a lot shorter than it is on paper.

Picking up one leg at a time and straining a lot of mental energy to do this task, she wonders if her body is going to be like this for a long time. Will she have to go to physical therapy? Is this what formerly paralyzed patients have to deal with when they are relearning the process of walking? As she makes more gradual steps across the room with the aid of the doctors, however, it begins to come back to her. It's like riding a bike. By the time they reach the door, she wants to tell them to get her hands off of her since she's almost certain that she can walk the rest of the way on her own.

"You're doing really well," one of the doctors comments as they're halfway to their destination down the hall.

"Can I do the rest on my own? I think I'm fine now," Lauren requests.

"Mm... no. Sorry. Better safe than sorry," the doctor responds. Sighing and rolling her eyes, she continues down the hallway until they finally reach the room at the end of the hallway.

It's the largest room from what she saw on her way here. Behind the desk sits a young black woman. She can't be that much older than Lauren's physical age; in fact, she might actually be the same age. The nameplate on the desk reads "Head of the Department of Futurology." This must be the successor to the original head of the experiment.

The woman wears a professional black dress, heels, and has her hair pulled up into a bun. Her demeanor is almost intimidating- Lauren can tell that this woman is business-oriented. A calm smile that isn't exactly warm appears on the woman's face as she approaches Lauren and extends a hand for her to shake.

"Welcome back to the world, Lauren," she greets her. "I'm Normani Hamilton, the new head of the department. I'll update you on your condition, the process of discharging you back into society, and I'll answer any questions you might have. Take a seat, please."

The doctors help Lauren sit in the large leather recliner across from the desk and exit the room, leaving the two of them alone. Normani walks back to her side of the desk and takes a seat in her own chair, facing Lauren. Retrieving a pair of glasses, she puts them on and picks up what appears to be Lauren's file.

"You have woken up into the year 2218. You were asleep for exactly two hundred years. It appears that there were no complications in uploading your brain data to the computer, resuscitating your body, or re-uploading it back to your body. As you are aware, the major medical issue that we have encountered deals with your pain receptors. Every single test subject we have tested so far does not have proper pain response. Something in your nervous system isn't working correctly- we will provide you with a couple medicines to take daily in order to attempt to fix this, and you will be required to come in for a monthly medical check-up so we can track your body's progress. Other than this, all of your initial medical tests indicate that you are healthy, which is good."

"Since your tests show no reason for us to keep you here any longer, we will be discharging you immediately after we are done talking. You began the experiment in our Los Angeles headquarters, but you are now located in the basement of our Chicago facility. Your new apartment is located in Arkadia Tower, right in the downtown area. As we promised, it is nothing but luxurious. You will be living in the penthouse, and rent has been paid off by us for the next five years. If you are unhappy about the apartment, feel free to let us know and we will relocate you to the apartment of your desire at no cost. However, we ask that you don't move out of the city for five years, for the sake of the experiment."

"We've taken the liberty of moving all of your clothes from your old apartment into your new apartment. An outfit will be provided for you to change into before you leave. $1,000,000 has been deposited into your bank account as promised, no taxes deducted. Your debts from college have been taken care of as well. I'm sure you are aware that unlike Los Angeles, Chicago is a city heavily reliant on public transportation systems. We've provided you with a 2219 Audi R8 regardless of this- it's currently parked in the parking garage of your apartment, and I will hand you the keys along with the keys to your new apartment."

"If you wish to go back to school to obtain a Master's Degree, you are free to enroll in any Chicago university. University of Chicago is a prestigious, viable option. Otherwise, you can wait five years and pursue your education elsewhere. Admissions will not be an issue. Just submit your documents and you will be able to attend whatever school you desire."

"A lot has changed in the two hundred years you were asleep, Lauren. It would take hours for me to tell you everything. I think it would be more interesting for you to explore the world and discover these changes on your own. Our involvement with you after you leave this facility will be almost none, besides the occasional check-up. The one thing we do ask of you is to record your thoughts in a journal we provide you. This journal is set to transmit certain keywords you write down to our researchers to collect data. Record your observations of the world. Record what you notice is different from two centuries ago. Record how you feel, mentally and physically."

"You will be provided with the newest technologies for your phone and laptop. On your phone and laptop, we have installed an application that allows you to connect with the other test subjects. It's a bit like a social network where you can choose to be anonymous or reveal your identity. You can talk with the others and share your thoughts, so you never feel alone in this experiment."

"That was a lot of information, and we're almost done. There is only one thing I have left to tell you before you can ask questions. How are you absorbing this all, Lauren?" Normani interrupts her long informational speech to check on her.

It's quite overwhelming. Lauren is having a hard time processing all of the information, but there's one thing that she understands completely- she didn't make a mistake in choosing this option over drowning in her debt. She can hardly think over the amount of questions swirling around in her head; despite all of this, she smiles and replies, "I'm fine. Go on."

The door opens immediately after Lauren responds, and a figure walks into the room. The same figure who assisted Lauren during her humiliating accident. It's Ally, the kind-hearted caretaker. Everything that the woman was saying about not being sure if she was allowed to have contact with Lauren yet makes sense now- Normani probably wanted this to be their first introduction.

"This is your new caretaker. I will explain what this is after you introduce yourselves," Normani sits back and allows them to greet each other.

"Hi, I'm Lauren," Lauren extends a hand and shakes Ally's. She grins and acts as if this is her first time meeting the other girl.

"It's so nice to finally meet you, Lauren. I'm Ally," the caretaker puts on the exact same act as Lauren. Her voice gushes with warmth. It would be almost impossible for someone to suspect that this isn't their first encounter with one another.

Lauren turns and faces Normani once more, curious to hear what the caretaker position really is.

"Caretakers are volunteers who signed up to ensure a quality life for the test subjects. Ally won't be living in your apartment, but she will be living in one down the hall from you. She can be as involved in your life as you desire. If you don't want to see her at all, then you will only see her when she comes to remind you about your monthly medical check-up. If you want to see her every day, then you may. The caretakers were chosen from the people who signed up for their ability to empathize and helpfulness. If you ever have a problem or need someone to talk to, Ally will be your person. We analyzed your brain data and used a thorough compatibility tester in order to make this match- we are positive that the two of you are the most fit for one another. However, if on the off-chance we miscalculated and you find a personality conflict, we will happily re-analyze and re-match you with a different caretaker at any time," Normani explains.

This actually seems like a really good idea. From the description, caretakers aren't meant to be intrusive. If Lauren ever needs emotional support throughout any of this process, she wouldn't feel comfortable going to any of the doctors or scientists. No ordinary therapist would ever understand what is going on, and she's sure that going to a regular psychologist would be highly discouraged since this experiment is meant to be top secret. Ally will fill that position instead. And from their encounter earlier, Lauren is sure that they won't have any problem getting along. In fact, she can even see their relationship transcending beyond just patient and caretaker- she can envision them becoming close friends.

"I am done presenting the information now. You are free to ask any questions and I will answer to the best of my ability," Normani informs her.

Although she had countless questions that would have taken hours to answer just moments before, only two come to mind. The other disappear, as they are irrelevant compared to these.

"I don't know if you have this information, but if you do...how did my family react upon finding out what happened to me? What ultimately happened to each of them?"

Lauren doesn't think she's ready for the answer to this, if Normani even has one. She'll never be ready, but how else will she find out? Maybe if the answer is too brutal, Normani might fabricate one or pretend that she doesn't have that information. She doesn't seem like the type to do that, though.

Normani sifts through Lauren's file, turning through the many pages until she finally stops at one toward the end. As Lauren watches the woman's eyes scan the paper, she opens her mouth to ask her not to reveal the information, but nothing comes out. She was brave enough to risk her life and wake up in a mysterious future; she will never be brave enough to readily hear the fates of the family she abandoned.

The best way out is through. Lauren closes her mouth and braces herself for whatever is about to be told to her next.

"Your family was upset upon being delivered your message and learning about the project. They took the money and didn't spend it wastefully. Both of your siblings completed all of their schooling without having to pay any tuition," Normani says. While this is starting out well, Lauren can't help but have a sinking feeling that it's about to go downhill from here.

The change in Normani's expression confirms this. Her professional, emotionless expression begins to show signs of feeling. The corners of her mouth tilt down ever so slightly and her eyes appear to droop a bit as they process the next information on the page.

"Your mother, Clara, took her own life in June 2021."

Three years after Lauren began the experiment. There's no denying that the loss of her oldest daughter took an emotional toll on her so hard that she felt the only escape was through death. Perhaps she believed that Lauren had died already and wanted to meet her there. No matter how she ended her life, there is no doubt that the family had to be ruined from it afterward. Lauren can't help but feel guilty.

She feels endlessly guilty, even more so now than before. And she feels sad upon learning this information about her beloved mother killing herself. But for some reason, it doesn't hurt as bad as she thought it would. No tears come to her eyes. Her heart rate remains steady and she maintains her composure. Shouldn't Lauren be on her knees, sobbing about how her actions led to this? Shouldn't she be praying to whatever entity is up there to let her go back in time and take back everything, just so she can erase her actions and save her mom's life? She recalls learning about the five stages of grief, the first being denial. Maybe that's it. Maybe this is denial and the emotions will hit her later.

All she says in response to this is, "Oh."

"I'm so sorry, Lauren," Normani apologizes, as if that could mend all that is broken and gone.

"Don't apologize. What about my dad, brother, and sister? What happened to them?" Lauren pushes for more information, wanting to hear the fates of the rest of her family. She wonders if they killed themselves, too.

"They all died from old age or natural causes," she tells her.

Before Normani can continue speaking, Lauren says, "That's all I wanted to know. Thank you. Am I free to leave now?"

The lack of emotional reaction after being told about her mother's death concerns everyone in the room, including Lauren herself. Ally and Normani exchange a quick worried glance with one another. There's nothing they can do to force an appropriate response, though. They figure that it must just be a delayed reaction as well. Opening one of her desk drawers and sifting through alphabetized folders, Normani withdraws a keychain with two keys on it: a regular shaped golden key and car keys with the Audi logo on them. She also retrieves a set of basic clothes, sufficient enough for transportation to Lauren's apartment where her actual clothes reside: a white knit sweater, black winter jacket, dark blue fitted jeans, and canvas shoes.

Normani removes her glasses, stands up, and walks to the other side of the desk where Lauren is situated. Handing the keychain to the Cuban, she gives her one last shake of the hand. "I'm looking forward to innovating the future with your assistance, Lauren. Good luck." The confident woman then hastily leaves the room with Ally, allowing Lauren to change into the clothing.

After changing into the basic clothes, Lauren exits the room and realizes she has absolutely no idea how to exit the facility, or where her apartment is. She's been to Chicago before, but that was two hundred years ago. If she needed to get around back then, she'd just hail a taxi or call an Uber with her phone. Who knows if Uber even exists in this society? Right as she is about to attempt to chase after Normani to inquire about this, Ally places a gentle hand on her arm to capture her attention, barely even touching it to avoid startling her.

"I'm going to escort you out and drive you to your apartment," Ally tells her. Lauren's confused face softens into a comforted smile. For some reason, this girl's presence is the most comforting she has ever experienced. Whoever created the matchmaking program for the caretakers and test subjects had to have been a genius- Lauren is certain that she won't have any trouble with her caretaker at all.

Following the shorter girl through the confusing maze of hallways, Lauren silently wonders to herself how in the world the people who work here even learned to navigate this building in the first place. There are no signs or diagrams on the walls that indicate your position in the facility at all. It's a bit like IKEA- lose someone in here and you might not ever see them again. The level of secrecy in the architecture makes sense, though, especially since the Department of Futurology has such high-level security.

Finally on ground level, Lauren is able to see out of the windows for the first time. In Los Angeles, there would hardly be a rainy day, or even a cloudy day, to the extent of causing a massive drought. She is a bit disappointed to gaze out of the windows only to see grey skies and large white flecks of snow falling from the clouds. It would have been nice to emerge from her dormant state to a warm, sunny day. It appears that she has woken up in the middle of winter, and as someone who has only lived in warm environments her entire life, this may be a bit unpleasant.

"Ready?" Ally asks as they reach the door for the parking garage. "The garage isn't heated, make sure your coat is zipped up!"

"It's zipped, Mom," Lauren jokes with a smirk. Despite her recent learning of her actual mother's suicide, she is still able to make a joke like this without breaking out into tears.

"Hey now, I'm just trying to make sure you don't freeze to death," Ally shakes her head and laughs at Lauren's remark.

As the two of them approach the automatic sliding glass door that leads to the parking garage, Lauren braces herself for a cold breeze to hit her body. She has no idea what the actual temperature is, but she knows it's cold enough for snow, so it has to be below freezing. As a Miami native and California resident, she considers anything below 65 degrees cold. But as the doors open and they walk into the unheated air, Lauren feels no cold breeze hit her skin. She doesn't even shiver at the least. It feels the same temperature as it was indoors.

Meanwhile, Ally's tiny body begins to shudder the moment the doors open. The coat that was provided to Lauren was cheap and shouldn't provide too much warmth. Ally's jacket, on the other hand, is thick and padded on the inside to protect the wearer from the cold. It looks somewhat expensive and of high quality, so Lauren doesn't understand why she isn't as impacted by the cold as Ally. In fact, she isn't affected at all.

"Do you want my jacket?" Lauren offers, beginning to unzip her own. As she speaks, she watches her breath evaporate from the difference in temperature of the air and her breath.

Ally shakes her head vigorously for a firm refusal. When she speaks, her voice shakes and her teeth chatter. "N-No Lauren, zip that back u-up! I-It's almost b-below zero o-outside, you n-need to stay w-warm."

"Hm. That's weird, I don't feel it," Lauren frowns. Although she doesn't feel the need to zip up her coat or even wear it to begin with, she does it anyway to appease her caretaker. There's no use being difficult to the one and only person who has shown her genuine kindness since she woke up. "Maybe it's something to do with how my nervous system isn't working right. If I can't feel pain it would make sense that I'm not able to feel the cold."

"Y-Yes, that's probably why," Ally considers Lauren's point. They reach her car which is a simple four door sedan. The exterior appears shiny and new as well as the interior. It's no luxury car like the one Lauren will be driving, but it's still nice. Hopping into the car, Ally shoves the keys into the ignition and starts the car with haste. She doesn't waste any time in turning on the heat full blast.

The last time Lauren used heat in a car, she recalls that warm air didn't blow from the vents immediately. Heat didn't start circulating in the car for about five minutes. However, right as Ally turned on the heat, warm air blasted throughout the car instantaneously.

"I'm guessing this is a new thing?" Lauren inquires to Ally. "The instant heat in cars."

Ally's shivering body relaxes as soon as the heat spreads throughout the vehicle. She unzips her jacket and is able to talk to Lauren without her sentences being rendered almost inaudible due to her shuddering. Her face scrunches in contemplation as she ponders the Cuban's question. Finally, she responds, "I suppose so for you, yeah. It's been like this for as long as I can remember so they probably invented it recently."

"Interesting," Lauren mutters, sitting back in the heated seat and staring out of the window in silence as Ally pulls out of the garage onto the street.

Although visibility is low from the snow, the skyline of downtown Chicago can still be seen in the distance. The facility had been located outside of the city, potentially for secrecy. Lauren wouldn't be surprised if the entire building they just exited had been dedicated solely to the Department of Futurology.

In the lower right hand corner of the windshield, faint numbers indicate the time, day, date, temperature, and location. It reads:

"4:03 PM  
Thursday  
December 10, 2218  
1ºF / -17ºC  
Chicago, IL"

Ally wasn't exaggerating when she was complaining about the cold. Two more degrees and the temperature would be in the negatives. Lauren notes that Christmas is coming up- she contemplates how she will spend the holiday, considering all of her friends and family are long dead. She supposes that she could probably do something with Ally, but the girl probably has her own family to spend time with on Christmas. She doesn't want to burden her.

Considering the amount of precipitation and the drastically low temperatures, Lauren would have assumed that the roads and traffic would be a mess. She recalls from the last time she was in Chicago at the beginning of her high school years, traveling anywhere in a car was a time-consuming hassle. But today, traffic is relatively clear and there isn't any ice on the roads prohibiting their mode of transportation. In fact, the roads are completely clear of anything. There's not one drop of snow to be found.

"Ally, why are the roads so clear?" Lauren asks with amazement.

"Solar roadways. They're relatively new, they just finished installing them nationwide a few years ago. They have some kind of heating so any snow and ice melts and the roads stay clear," Ally explains.

"Oh, that's useful. I'm surprised that cars aren't self-driving yet."

"They actually made those but there were too many malfunctions and crashes so they were banned from the roads."

Lauren nods and returns her attention to the window, allowing silence to fill the car with the only noise coming from the low hum of the engine. Sometimes the absence of sound can be ironically deafening, but right now, it's what is keeping her sane. She's still processing the fact that she has technically existed in the world longer than any other human. She's still processing all of the changes that she has observed already, and all of the changes she has yet to see. And she's still processing the fact that all of the people she loved are long gone. It's a lot to take in, and she honestly just feels exhausted from it all.

Ally is a naturally talkative person. She's one of those people who can carry a conversation with almost anyone with ease, and it's always enjoyable. But she is also sensible. As they drive into the downtown area and their own conversation dies, Ally doesn't feel obligated to try to resurrect it. Sometimes silence is better, and she can tell that's the case now. Hell, she's still a little uneasy about Lauren not having a severe emotional reaction to the news about her mother's suicide. If Lauren ends up taking her own life for whatever reason, Ally will feel like a failure. Not just as a caretaker, but as a human being.

Traffic becomes a bit more dense as they reach the downtown area, but they're never slowed or stopped at any point. They drive through the famous Magnificent Mile, the place most tourists will spend their time in the city. Cruising across a bridge over a river, the car finally makes a turn into a parking garage connected to a high-rise building.

"Here we are," Ally announces as she parks the car relatively close to an entrance. The two of them step out of the car and enter the complex.

The first floor is spacious and nicely decorated. There's a business center, fitness center, lounge area, pool, and hot tub. It almost seems like a hot tub. The apartment Lauren rented in Los Angeles was very low-end. Four floors, shitty parking garage, no amenities, and it constantly had issues. To say this is an upgrade would be an understatement.

Ally leads Lauren into an elevator, pressing the very top button that reads 33. She almost forgot that she will be living in the penthouse. Penthouses are generally for people who have an established career well into their lives, or for kids whose rich daddies spoil them. Adjusting to 2218's society and advancements won't be the only thing that's strange for her- adjusting from a middle class lifestyle to an upper class lifestyle will be interesting.

The elevator skyrockets to the top floor, faster than any elevator Lauren has ever experienced. She wonders if this is just a privilege from living in a high-end apartment like this, or if elevators everywhere have been innovated to be more efficient. When the doors open and they step into the hallway, Lauren retrieves her key and looks at the number.

There are six apartments. Her key reads 3306; the same number resides on the outside of a door on the end of the hallway. Ally's apartment appears to be right next to her: 3305. Lauren slides her key into the hole, twisting it until she hears a satisfying click that tells her that the locks have been released.

Twisting the handle and pushing the door open gently, Lauren's eyebrows raise as her eyes meet her apartment for the first time. She steps in and turns her head to see if the shorter girl is following her inside.

"I just wanted to make sure that you got into your apartment okay. I'll be right next door unless you want me to help you settle in," Ally tells her, gesturing to the adjacent door.

"No, that's fine. Thank you for everything, Ally. I'll see you around," Lauren smiles graciously, waving goodbye and shutting the door as the other girl leaves. Turning around to face her new home once more, she becomes overwhelmed, realizing that this is her apartment.

The dining room and living room areas are bigger than every single room in her previous apartment combined. Every room is fully furnished with grandiose, modern pieces. A 65" flat-screen television sits in the living room across from cream couches. In the kitchen resides white quartz countertops, two-tone cabinetry, stainless steel appliances, gas stoves, and white glass mosaic tile backsplash. Each room contains floor-to-ceiling windows that provide a wide view of the city. From the shortened days due to the winter solstice approaching, the sky has already darkened with the only lights being produced by the skyscrapers. It's a gorgeous perspective of the city- Lauren can only imagine how pretty this view will be during a sunset or sunrise.

Heading deeper into her apartment, Lauren heads down the hallway across from the kitchen/living room/dining room area. The first room on the right is a bedroom, complete with a queen sized bed, desk, dresser, and walk-in closet. The next room features that master bedroom, with a king sized bed, walk-in closet, desk, dresser, and a television directly across from the bed. A door in the master bedroom leads to the terrace, a decently sized area with a couple of lounging chairs and a table between them that sit on it. Another door next to the television and closer to the door to the hallway leads to the master bathroom, furnished with a toilet, two sinks on a marble counter, a large mirror, and a contemporary bath finish with a frameless glass shower.

From an apartment with one tiny dorm room sized bedroom, a minuscule bathroom, and barely a living area, to something as luxurious as this, it almost seems too good to be true. Lauren expects to wake up in her old bed in her old apartment at any moment, and for this to be some crazy dream. This is the type of house that she would only see on House Hunters or on TV. She never imagined that she would live in one.

Lauren opens the sliding door to her walk-in closet. All of her clothing from her old wardrobe resides inside. Part of her wonders how fashion has evolved. If there are completely new trends, and if her "old-fashioned" style will cause her to stand out even more among others. But frankly, in this moment, she doesn't really care right now. Stripping out of the clothing that was issued to her at the facility and throwing on a pair of sweatpants and one of her favorite band t-shirts, Lauren is just happy to get back into her own clothing.

Stepping out of the bedroom and back into the main area, she notices another door in the kitchen that she missed. Sliding the glass door aside, Lauren notes that it's a balcony. It's nothing big enough for any actual furniture like the terrace; it's only big enough for a few people to stand outside. Ignoring the logical voice in the back of her head that warns her to put on a coat, she exits through the door out onto the balcony to get a better look.

The cold still doesn't bother her. Snow falls from the air and the little white flecks land on her head and exposed skin, but it doesn't affect Lauren in the least bit. She walks closer to the railing, leaning over to inspect the distance to the ground.

Her apartment is far enough up in the building for the cars on the ground to appear like small insects. As she stares over the edge, a morbid thought runs through her head: If I jumped, would I feel anything?

Lauren has never been suicidal. Although she has had a couple dark times in her life due to financial issues or break-ups, she has never suffered a serious depressive episode. She convinces herself that the thought wasn't even of a suicidal nature. People experience intrusive thoughts like that all of the time. It's named the "call of the void" - the urge to fling yourself over the edge of a cliff or jump out of a moving car on the highway, even though you are rational and recognize that this is not an acceptable action to do. So the call of the void is never strong enough to beckon anyone to ever act on it.

But that doesn't dampen her curiosities. She wonders if there is any extent of pain that would be so severe that even her damaged pain receptors would start working again.

Thinking about her lack of ability to feel pain reminds her that her body is probably suffering from standing outside. She may not feel it, but if she lands herself in the hospital with frostbite from her idiotic decision to stay outside without any layers protecting her from the cold, it probably wouldn't be pleasant. Returning inside, Lauren observes that the skin on her arms has paled even more from the freezing temperature. That definitely was not the best idea.

Lauren pondered whether the re-upload would affect her ability to sleep. However, although the clock on the oven indicates that it is only 5:05 PM, her eyes droop with heaviness and her muscles ache with exhaustion. It's been a long day for her, and her body is begging for rest. Dragging herself to her bedroom and climbing into the large bed, Lauren is about to close her eyes when she spots the journal she is supposed to record her daily thoughts in atop of the bedside table.

She enjoys the concept of journaling. Keeping a log of her thoughts and feelings every day will be useful, and interesting to look back on in the future. Before the experiment, she kept a journal on a private blog online but didn't update it religiously. She always enjoyed reading her old entries, though. Lauren figures that she should at least try to get some thoughts down on the paper before she passes out- failing to journal on her first day awake would probably result in some future regrets.

Reaching over and grabbing the journal and the pen on top of it, she turns to the first page and begins to write.

"Day 1

I'm really exhausted so I don't know how much I'll be able to coherently write before it becomes illegible or I pass out, but here goes.

There's a lot that I learned today but I know that there's so much that they haven't told me. I haven't been out in the city. I haven't seen actual people besides Ally, the new director of the experiment, and the doctors/scientists working on me. I don't know if society has radically changed or if it has remained stagnant. It has to have changed though, right...? I mean, it's been two hundred fuckin' years. Society changed SO much technologically, socially, economically, and every other aspect you can think of from 1818 to 2018 and that was two hundred years. I'll be pretty disappointed if not much has changed. On the other hand, I don't know how I'll be able to adjust or fit in if it has changed as much as I am expecting.

I'm supposed to write about emotions in here, I think. Pretty sure that's what I was told to do. Well...to be blunt, I don't really feel anything except exhaustion. I feel small bursts of emotions that die down in seconds. I fell down on the floor and basically humiliated myself today but I only felt frustration and embarrassment for a fraction of a second. I was told that my own mom killed herself because of shit I did and I barely felt a thing.

If I'm being honest? I'm not quite sure if I'm alive right now.

This could all be a dream. This could be a pre-death hallucination, or the afterlife. I don't know what the hell this is but it doesn't feel real. I feel like I'm part of a video game or a dream, walking around without any consequences. I stood outside in fucking below freezing windchill weather and didn't feel a thing. Part of me really wanted to fling myself over the balcony railing to see if I woke up. I may be impulsive, but I'm not that impulsive. I have rational thoughts sometimes...

Anyway, if, in this hypothetical situation where this is a dream, I ever wake up, I won't be surprised to find out that it was a dream. That's how weird this all feels. Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow. Maybe I'll feel again.

I'm too tired to write anymore. Everything always used to fix itself in the morning. Perhaps it will be the same. Hell, I'm in the fucking future. Why am I doubting everything so much?"

Just as they did right before she fell into her two century slumber, her eyelids grow uncontrollably heavy and shut as she drifts off to sleep after returning the journal to its original position next to the bed.

***

"Day 30

I'm writing in the morning instead of the night because today is my one month anniversary of waking up. This should be a momentous occasion that I should be celebrating. I should be going out to the bars tonight with my friends and live it the fuck up- it's 2219 and I am alive.

It still doesn't feel like it though. Glancing back at my first entry in this, I talked about how I wasn't sure if I'm alive. That doubt still carries with me to this day. My checkup with the doctors yesterday showed no change. I still can't feel pain. My emotions are dull. It's like the world used to be in technicolor, and now I can only experience certain shades of each hue.

I'm a millionaire. I live in a nice ass apartment with the government catering to practically any possible financial need of mine. Why do I feel so empty?

Maybe it's because I only have Ally. And even then, I don't see her too often. I don't want to bother her. I know she has a life. She has friends, she has a boyfriend, she has a family. I know I probably wouldn't want to be burdened by some hollow, sad shell of a test subject. She's reiterated constantly that she isn't bothered by me, that she genuinely enjoys my presence and she is here for me for whatever I need. I still feel like a burden, though.

I can count the number of times I've been out of my apartment on two hands. Maybe even one. Let's see... I went out for groceries on day three. I went out for a coffee with Ally another day. I went clothes shopping. I went out to breakfast with Ally a week ago. And...that's it. Wow. That's actually really fucking pathetic, only five times. I just don't have a purpose for leaving my house? I usually like exploring cities, especially new ones, but....there's not a single ounce of motivation in my body to leave the apartment except for necessities. Maybe I can attribute that to being a little nervous about others being able to detect that I'm not from this era. A lot has changed. It's been hard to adjust.

Apparently nothing is different for the other test subjects. Ally told me the other day that a few have killed themselves...jumping off bridges, hanging themselves, cutting their wrists...I wonder if they were trying to force themselves to feel again. I wonder if they, too, doubted their reality. Maybe they're right. Maybe they are truly awake right now and experiencing life as they should be. God, I can't tell if they're brave or foolish. They may be brave for risking everything to try to return themselves to normalcy. Perhaps I'm a coward for not being able to gather the will to throw myself over the edge and try to wake myself up, if I am indeed still sleeping. Or maybe they were wrong and fools for taking their own lives, and I am wise for not seeking solutions like that. Regardless of how I feel, after everything I put my family through, I can't take my life on the off-chance that this is real. I can't.

I should try to write about a positive though. This is all completely negative. Here's something positive: last night after I finished writing my journal entry, I decided to touch myself.

Oh lord. I can already see it now. After I die for real, this diary is going to be published in part of the scientific study and everyone's going to read about me masturbating. Whatever. Fuck it. I don't care. I'm fucking proud of this.

It gave me some sense of feeling. I don't understand why and I'm not about to call up the doctors and ask them for a scientific explanation, but I felt something physically for the first time. Pleasure. And it wasn't just a little inkling of pleasure, it was really fucking strong. I may not be able to feel pain but I can feel pleasure, and I'm not going to complain about that.

Today, I'm driving to the pet store to adopt a puppy. I'm simply going to drive to the pet store, pick out the cutest one, buy some food, toys, and a cage, and bring him/her back to my apartment. I adore puppies. Always have. It gets lonely, living in such a big space by yourself. It'll be nice to have a furry companion. I'll update this later with what kind of dog it is and their name."

Lauren shuts her journal and stands up out of the bed to begin her morning routine. During her first period of existence, she spent a lot of effort in her morning routine. She felt insecure about her hair and wore makeup almost every day, worrying that she would look awful without it. Now, she doesn't bother with makeup. She showers, brushes her hair until it looks decent, throws on some clothes, brushes her teeth, and heads out of the door. A routine that previously lasted an hour and a half now only lasts thirty minutes.

Heading down the elevator to the first floor and then out to the parking garage, Lauren unlocks the door to her matte black Audi. This is the kind of car that her father would dream about. She never imagined that she would ever own one. The few times she has taken it out to drive, she has caught several people staring at it with envy and awe from the sidewalk. In all honesty, she doesn't feel like she deserves the luxurious life that she is living. She feels like she doesn't deserve her expensive apartment or car. Yes, she risked her life and sacrificed all of her important relationships in order to achieve it. But part of her wonders if she would have been happier living in a struggling financial state with everyone she loved still alive.

The moment the car leaves the parking garage and drives onto the streets of Chicago, Lauren can feel that something is off. Not with the car, but with the roads. When she presses her foot on the brake, the tires don't slide to an easy stop like they normally do. They slide, skid, and struggle. She figures that something must be malfunctioning with the solar roadways. Regardless, this won't stop her from retrieving her puppy. A little ice isn't too difficult as long as Lauren is careful.

"Take me to the nearest pet store," Lauren speaks into the car's built-in GPS.

"Yes, Lauren," the robotic female voice responds. "The nearest pet store is Pet Palace on West Fulton Street. With current traffic, this is approximately a five minute drive. Would you like to set this as your destination?"

"Yes."

"Waypoint added. Take a left at the next intersection."

Lauren follows the GPS' instructions, driving with caution down the road with a good amount of space between her and the car in front of her. The built-in GPS is one of her favorite inventions of the new era. Along with the voice guiding her, a transparent image appears on the upper right corner of the windshield with a map to provide a visual aid in case she needs it. If only the self-driving cars had succeeded in execution and not just conceptually.

The estimated time of arrival reads less than two minutes as Lauren sits patiently at a red light. To bide the time, she turns on the radio. Right as the music starts playing, as if her pressing the power button was the trigger, a loud crash from behind sounds and she lurches forward into her seat. Her vehicle slides forward a few inches, but thankfully stops before it impacts the car in front of her. Her body doesn't hit anything except the seatbelt. The airbag doesn't deploy. This isn't any major crash. Lauren has been in much worse and she is aware of this.

For the first time since waking up, however, she feels an emotion that is more than just a flicker. It persists, her heart beating faster, her fists clenching, and her jaw gritting in anger.

Anger. Out of all of the emotions to feel without any barriers or inhibitions, of course it had to be this one.

This was supposed to be her day. Her personal "treat yourself" day. For once, she was genuinely looking forward to something and, of course, it had to be ruined. The one positive experience that she was excited for throughout this entire month and some idiot had to hit her. The solar roadways just had to malfunction and cause everything to spiral into shit. Why can't anything good happen to her? Even things that present themselves as good end up bad. Endless wealth and no more debt? Surprise, she's left physically and emotionally numb with all of her loved ones dead! Going to buy a puppy? Nope, the universe has to make this into a challenge!

Unbuckling her seatbelt and stepping out of the car, Lauren slams the door with such force that she's surprised something didn't break. Walking to the rear of the car to inspect the damage, she doesn't even look at the car that hit her yet. All she can focus on is the damage to her car.

The back bumper that was once flawless now has a significant crack in it, a chunk falling off already. It's not that she is being materialistic and angry about this luxurious possession being slightly ruined. She knows that her insurance will cover this, and it's not even that big of a deal. It's the concept of her day being ruined that absolutely infuriates her.

"O-Oh shit, I am so so sorry," a young female voice apologizes profusely with a tone of panic. "These damn solar roads, fuck, I... I'm an idiot, shit."

"You're fucking right you are," Lauren grumbles. She turns around to face the culprit of this little incident.

If she weren't filled with pure rage, she might think that the girl is cute. The girl is petite with olive skin and long straight black locks that fall down to her waist. Lauren notices her chestnut eyes welling up with tears and her plump pink lips quivering. Her eyelids are lined with a black liner and accentuated with mascara, and her cheeks contoured with a pale blush that complements her skin tone. Unlike Lauren, she certainly put more effort into her appearance before leaving her house.

She is definitely Lauren's type physically. If they had met in a different setting like a gay bar, there is no doubt that Lauren would have sought her out and attempted to flirt with her. But in this scenario, with this girl being the cause of the demise of her day, the Cuban can't help but feel anything except raw annoyance with her.

"I-I'll call the police so they can report the accident," the shaken girl stammers, retrieving her phone from her pocket. As she begins to dial the three digits to contact the police, Lauren shakes her head and gestures for her to put the phone away.

"No. You've already fucked up my day enough, the cops will just make it more of a hassle," Lauren rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.

"Oh...are you...are you sure?" she asks, raising her eyebrows with a quizzical expression as if she is trying to decipher if this is some type of test. "I...here, let me get out my insurance information..."

"No. I can pay for it. I don't want to deal with this. Let's just get in our respective cars, drive away, and forget this. You pay for the wreckage to your car and I'll pay for mine. It's fine. I just want to go about my fucking day in peace," Lauren breathes heavily to calm herself down. She has a reputation for being impulsive in situations of extreme anger like this.

"No, let me give you my–"

"No. Don't ask again. I'm leaving," Lauren begins to walk toward the front of the car, but a hand on her arm stops her from moving any further. She instinctively swats it away, turning around and glaring at the girl who tried to halt her.

"Let me see your phone, please," the girl requests, holding up her own phone.

"Why?" Lauren furrows her eyebrows in confusion. Nonetheless, she withdraws it from her pocket, holding it with a tight grip in case the girl is attempting to rob her.

The girl holds her own phone over Lauren's, the two screens facing one another until a small ping resonates from both of them. Once again, Lauren instinctively assumes the worst. She withdraws her phone, shoving it back into her pocket and giving the other girl a cold, untrusting glare.

"The hell did you just do?" Lauren asks.

The other girl appears confused as well. She speaks in a tone as if it should be common knowledge. "I transferred my contact information to your phone. Let me make this up to you somehow, I feel really shitty. Let me take you out to lunch or coffee or something. I'm Camila. You're right, the cops are a hassle and I would like to pay for your car but you seem insistent about it. So at least let me repay you with a date."

Lauren cackles as if Camila just delivered the most hilarious joke of the entire century. "A date? Ha! Yeah, no. Fuck off."

Before she can watch Camila's expression fade into an even more embarrassed and sad one, Lauren spins around and storms into her car, buckling her seatbelt and quickly driving away. Her heart still races with adrenaline and anger.

As her car rides down the road toward her destination and she calms down a bit, Lauren realizes how monumental this is.

She felt something. That foolish girl back there who idiotically hit her car evoked raw emotions that haven't surfaced since she woke up. Not even an orgasm produced emotions like this. Lauren's orgasm last night was pleasurable and made her feel good, but like the rest of her emotions thus far, it didn't last. This lasted. She still feels the remnants of her anger, her heart rate still slightly faster than normal. For the first time upon waking up, she doesn't doubt her existence. She doesn't doubt whether she is alive or not. She felt the blood pulsing through her body. She felt her skin warming from the adrenaline. She felt.

Maybe that car crash wasn't bad after all.

 


	2. Chapter 2

After the minor incident on her way to the pet store that led to Lauren feeling actual emotions for the first time upon waking up, she expected that to be the turning point. Perhaps that was all she needed: one single event that would trigger her limbic system to begin working properly again. However, over the days following the accident, no emotion she felt was as potent as the anger targeted toward the insufferably idiotic girl that caused her body to shake and her fists to clench. Not even the sight of her new Corgi puppy, Cooper, elicits much of anything from her. Sure, the sight of the little fluffy ball of energy running toward her on his tiny legs with his tongue sticking out makes her smile, but the moment of joy passes as quickly as it came. Puppies used to make her squeal with joy--she would giggle as she would pet and play with them for hours. She loves Cooper and she will make every effort to make sure that he lives a happy dog life in her apartment. Yet, it's a major indicator that her emotions are still out of touch.

Maybe it was a one time incident. Maybe her emotions will spike randomly and she will suddenly be able to feel again. Maybe there are certain events that will trigger her feelings, and maybe this will be the only way she will experience emotions for the rest of her life. If that's the case, it's going to be shitty. And she's going to have to either deal with it and adapt, as she has been doing for the past month, or try to "wake herself up." In her first phase of life, she would find herself wishing to be able to turn her emotions off a lot, especially during hard times, like a breakup. Feelings can be exhausting. But not feeling anything is surprisingly even more exhausting. What's the point of living numb?

Lauren tried to trigger another angry response when she realized that her feelings were back to their broken condition. She attempted to seek out her biggest pet peeves and every single thing that used to annoy her to unbelievable extents. This ranged from heading out to the city to purposely get stuck behind slow walkers to browsing conservative communities on the Internet that would discuss their racist, bigoted views. Normally, these behaviors would infuriate her. She can't even recall the amount of times she almost got into a physical fight with someone over their close-minded opinions that degraded other people. But as she immersed herself in these activities, she felt barely anything.

So then she developed another possible theory. Perhaps the spikes of feelings occurred with one emotion at a time. Maybe she had to build up enough of one emotion for the hormones and chemicals to actually release throughout her body. To test this, Lauren continued to attempt to force herself into the emotions by immersing herself with everything that used to induce those feelings in the past. For sadness, she reread books and rewatched movies that used to never fail at making her cry. She looked up sob stories and even seeked out a list of the saddest videos and documentaries of all time. Yet not a single tear was produced in her eyes. She repeated this personal "experiment" with fear, embarrassment, and happiness--they all resulted in the same nothingness.

Laying on the couch in her living area, face down, head buried in a pillow, and one arm around Cooper, Lauren is certain about one thing: these emotional experiments only succeeded at making her tired. She's physically and mentally exhausted. Fatigue plagues her body, causing all of her bones to feel heavy. The mere thought of attempting to elicit another emotion from her numb, inadequate brain is enough to make her gag.

Though her mind lacks the energy to process too many thoughts at the moment, there is one thing that she left her brain for the past few days: Camila. Occasionally she will unlock her phone and stare at the contact information that was synced from the other girl's phone to her own, contemplating whether to tap on the message button and take her up on that date. No matter how long her finger hovers, Lauren never musters up the will to bring it down to the screen. But as she stares at Camila's contact on her phone now, the urge to text her is stronger than ever.

At the moment, she has three sole contacts: Ally, a help line created specifically for the test subjects, and Camila. Her social life is admittedly tragic. At this rate, her existence won't even be significant since no one will know that she is alive because she never leaves the house. She doesn't have any acquaintances besides the ones assigned to her. This is a decent opportunity to meet someone new.

It isn't that she's scared to go on a date. Her emotional numbness prohibits that anyway--it's more of a pride issue. During their last encounter, Lauren was unbelievably rude to Camila. Her attitude and harsh, stubborn behavior drove the poor girl to tears. She treated the concept of spending any more time with her as a barbaric idea that only a pure imbecile could have thought up. Texting her now to ask if the offer to go on a date is still valid would be a complete 180. But perhaps that would be the proper action to take. She does recognize that how she treated the other girl was a bit unfair. Yes, the girl should have never run into her car, but it was an accident that was definitely caused by the malfunctioning solar roadways. Lauren's anger was displaced and she owes Camila an apology.

She wanted to look Camila up on the Internet to see if she's secretly a convicted felon or something, but when the girl's contact information synced to her phone, she was only given her first name. However, she seemed relatively normal, so it's not like that's a huge concern.

As her finger continues to hover over her screen, she contemplates what her parents would advise her to do in this situation. Clara would probably slap Lauren on the arm for behaving so rudely to Camila and force her to apologize. Mike would probably agree that the smaller girl should have been more careful, but he would also chastise Lauren for her behavior. The thought of her deceased parents causes her to feel mixed emotions, mostly of which are dulled sadness and guilt.

After an eternity of indecisiveness, Lauren finally concludes that she is going to go through with this. If not for her own social well-being or redemption for her outlandish behavior, she will do it for her parents. She knows it's what they would want. She might not be able to turn back time and make them proud how she wants to, but she can do this at the very least.

"Call Camila," Lauren speaks to her phone that operates almost solely on voice recognition. A ringing tone resonates from the small device as the screen switches to the calling display. Her heart rate speeds up a bit; are these actual nerves? Is she experiencing an emotion from the mere action of calling the girl?

After four rings, the dialing tone stops and Camila's smooth voice emits from the speakers. "Hello?"

Contrary to the physical stress response that had been building up before she answered, her heart rate slows down and the sound of her voice soothes her body into equilibrium once again. For once, Lauren wishes that her heart was still pounding. She wishes that her palms would be clammy with anxious sweat. But it becomes obvious that this isn't going to be happening any time soon. Huffing a sigh, Lauren contemplates hanging up, then decides that she's already made it this far. She might as well follow through with it.

"Hey, is this Camila? It's Lauren."

Silence. She begins to wonder if the girl on the other side hung up, but she can vaguely make out the sound of her soft breathing. Then Lauren remembers that she never introduced herself to Camila- she was too busy yelling at her.

"Sorry, it's the girl you uh...from the accident the other day."

"Oh, yeah!" Camila exclaims. "You know, I thought that's who it was but I almost couldn't tell because your voice sounds a little different when you aren't yelling. I like it."

Lauren instinctively rolls her eyes at the somewhat backhanded compliment. From her short interaction with her the other day, she could tell that the girl was a bit socially awkward. She probably doesn't find anything wrong with what she just said; trying to avoid another fight, Lauren chooses to ignore it and get to the point of why she even called in the first place.

"Look, I'm sorry about how I reacted the other day. I was just...really fucking pissed off. I had a bad day," Lauren begrudgingly moves past her pride in order to apologize. Usually getting an apology out of this girl is difficult. "You offered to take me out on a date, and I want to take you up on that. That is, if it's still on the table. I was really rude to you so I get if you don't want anything to do with me anymore."

"No no, of course it's still on the table! Really, don't feel bad about the other day. If anyone should feel bad about it, it's me. I made the stupid mistake," Camila quickly shuts down any indication of Lauren blaming herself. "I'm free tomorrow night. Do you want to get dinner?"

"That sounds perfect. What time?"

"Does 6:00 work for you?" Camila asks.

"Yeah." Lauren doesn't add how she has practically no social life. She doesn't want to ruin her chances with this girl before they can even begin.

"Cool," A smile can be heard in Camila's voice from over the phone. "I'll pick you up? I swear my driving isn't always shitty, it was the roads."

"Sure," Lauren grins. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Can't wait, byeeee!" Camila's cheery voice emanates before the sound of a click that indicates that she hung up already.

Lauren is still grinning. If her emotions were fully working, her cheeks would be flushing and her heart would be pumping faster. Though it's nothing like it used to be, she feels the trace of something that she hasn't felt in a long time--happiness.

The trace of happiness washes away quickly. Perhaps it's because of her inability to hold onto emotions for an extended period of time. Or perhaps it's because the faint sense of nervousness takes its place.

Fuck. She's about to go on her first date since waking up. Hell, it's her first actual human interaction with someone besides Ally. Dates would always be a large source of her anxiety in the past, but now it's even worse because she's afraid that there are drastic changes in dating norms in this day and age.

It's been about two hundred years since the last time she went on a date. Is it now customary for people to have sex on the first date? Or do most people hold off until a few dates later?

What if Camila can tell that Lauren isn't from this time period? What if she can tell that something is very off about her, but can't place her finger on it, and thus loses interest in the girl?

She can't reveal that she's actually from the 2000s to Camila. Even if it weren't classified information, she probably wouldn't do that on the first date anyway. Camila would probably end up thinking that she has something wrong going on in her head and not call her back for a second date.

Instead of pacing around her room and thinking about every single thing that could go wrong, Lauren realizes that there's a better option: she can go to Ally for advice. Her caretaker is sweet and will definitely want to help her.

It's convenient that Ally lives next to Lauren. She simply exits her apartment and the girl's door is right there. Knocking on it, she is greeted by the girl within a matter of ten seconds. "Hey Lauren!" she beams up at her.

"Hey, do you mind if I come in? I need some...help," Lauren says in an almost ashamed tone.

"I'll never mind, Lauren. My home is your home, come right in," Ally steps aside for her to walk in and shuts the door behind her. The two sit down in her living room on the couch, positioned adjacent to one another. "What's up?"

She can tell that Ally is concerned. The older girl tries to mask the worry in her voice, but it still bleeds through. It's for a good reason, though--nine of the participants total so far have committed suicide. She's probably worried that Lauren is at that point as well.

"I have a date tomorrow," Lauren reveals. "And I'm pretty nervous. Well, I mean, as nervous as I can get, given my physical state. But, um...yeah. I just had some questions."

"A date?!" Ally perks up, her eyebrows raising and her eyes lighting up with joy. "Who's the lucky guy? Or gal? Wait, you don't need to tell me if you don't want. Laur, I'm so excited for you!"

The small girl is practically bouncing in her seat, and Lauren smiles at her excitement. Ally may actually be more excited for this date than she is herself.

"It's the girl who accidentally hit my car the other day. Her name is Camila. She offered to take me out on a date but I was so angry in the moment that I refused. I changed my mind and called her today," Lauren tells her. "We're going out to dinner. I'm just a little nervous. This is my first real interaction with anyone besides you and I don't want it to be blaringly obvious that I'm technically older than her great-great-great-great-grandparents."

While Lauren will have ventured out into the world a few times prior to the date, she was not out long enough to detect any major differences in how the world works. There are new innovations and technologies, as she already noticed by the cars, roads, and phones. But, as far as she could tell, nothing else changed too drastically. The people of this age don't have a new accent or new lingo. They don't have strange evolutionary developments on their bodies like a third breast or anything. She's nervous that she just hasn't been observant enough, and she'll give something away that is a major tell to her secret.

"Hmm...well, what do you want to know specifically?" Ally struggles to think about how she can help with such an open-ended problem.

"Have there been any huge advancements in technology or behaviors that I should be aware of?" Lauren inquires. "Like, the other day, Camila pressed her phone to mine and I had absolutely no idea what was going on but apparently it transferred all of her contact information to mine with just a touch. She talked about it like it was common sense."

"Behaviorally, we're virtually the same as the people who lived in your time. As a whole, we're a lot more accepting of minorities. Technology obviously advanced a lot though. There's too much to cover but it'll be quick for you to catch on and adapt to it. The biggest advancement would probably be that workers in simple jobs are almost all AIs. Artificial Intelligence machines, like robots. They look almost perfectly human, but you can tell by their eyes that they aren't," Ally explains. "Do you remember when we went out for breakfast? Our waitress was an AI."

Lauren's jaw drops as she recalls the waitress in the breakfast cafe. She would have never guessed that it was actually a robot. "Holy shit. No fucking way. Dude, they make movies about this shit. They're going to take over the world."

"There's a social movement against AIs for that concern," Ally laughs. "Yeah, they're very realistic. It's almost scary. They've been around for about twenty years though. Anyway, when it comes to technology, you'll catch on quickly. There isn't anything other than that which would be a huge tell to her. Even then, she'd probably just think you're extremely sheltered. I promise it won't harm your date."

"Why hasn't everything changed drastically? It's two hundred years. Shouldn't we all be replaced by AIs or some crazy shit like that? It feels like I just woke up ten years later with a lot of new technology," Lauren frowns, the prospect of the future not being extremely different frustrating to her. "Between the 1800s and 2000s, so much changed. Like, they were completely different worlds. This isn't that different though...as far as I can tell."

"When Normani explained it to us, she gave me the specific name of the theory why that happened... I can't quite remember it," Ally furrows her eyebrows in thought, attempting to recall the name of the theory. Not being able to remember, she shakes her head and continues. "The gist of the theory is basically that humanity hit a wall in terms of behavioral advancement. Something about how a species can only evolve so far before advancement peaks and plateaus. As humans we aren't going to advance or change drastically because of this theoretical wall. I think we hit it around...2050? I don't really understand it myself, honestly. You can probably Google it for a better explanation."

Lauren nods slowly. The pieces of the puzzle are still not fitting together easily, but she understands the basics. "Hmm....okay. That makes sense, I guess. What about science? Any big changes?" Deep down, she hopes that aliens were real.

"Still no aliens, but if you're a billionaire, you can live on the moon. If you don't want to live there, you can take a trip, but that costs a good $500,000 for 3 days," Ally shrugs.

Internally, Lauren curses civilization for not having found the existence of aliens in the universe. She also wonders if she could get a free all-expenses paid trip to the moon from the government. It's the least they can do for what she's been through. "That's dope. Is there anything else you think I should know before tomorrow night?"

Ally places a comforting hand on top of Lauren's. "Breathe. Smile. You're gorgeous, you're going to be fine. She's going to love you, and if she doesn't, then she was never the right person in the first place."

Lauren sighs, feeling her stress dissipate from her caretaker's reassuring words. Though she still feels like she's in the dark about the new world, she's confident that if anything will make her fuck up this date, it won't be her ignorance of how things work. It'll be her own personality, which is somewhat more comforting than the idea of her identity as a test subject being exposed.

"Thank you so much, Ally. You'll be the first to know how tomorrow goes," she wraps her arms around the tiny girl, pulling her into a warm embrace and rubbing her back. She mutters under her breath, "Not like there's anyone else for me to tell."

"Any time," Ally smiles. Lauren stands up and begins to walk toward the entrance before her exit is interrupted by the other girl's voice. "Oh, and if you wanted to read more about the theory I was talking about, I just remembered the name. Cabello's Filter Theory."

Lauren nods, making a mental note of the name for later. Bidding farewell to the girl, she heads back to her own room for some mental preparation and further research for her date tomorrow.

***

"Day 35

Well, I did it. I took Camila up on that date.

I figured I don't have anything better to do with my time. If I weren't going on the date tomorrow, I'd just be sitting in my apartment again, alone with Cooper, watching the mind-numbing TV again for hours.

I couldn't keep myself isolated for so long, and that's exactly what I had been doing for the past month. It's not that I've been scared...I've just been so apathetic to everything, I didn't even care about the fact that my social life was equivalent to a 40 year old virgin living in his mom's basement. I didn't particularly care about life or anything at all, so why should I try to connect with other people who will never be able to connect with me? I guess I could technically try to connect with other test subjects on that social network thing, but I feel like we'd just bring each other down. Too much apathy going around.

It's a paradox. Attempt to form meaningful relationships with strangers who will never understand what I'm going through, or attempt to form meaningful relationships with other people who probably disregard life as much as I do?

I'm not usually a dreamer but this past month may have turned me into one. I feel like there's something different about Camila. She got me to feel intensely for the first time five days ago. Maybe she can do that again. (Hopefully not with anger though...)

I know I'm being irrational. There's probably a more logical explanation. My frustration likely just got bottled up and happened to explode because of the accident. If it had been some old man who hit me, I bet I would have blown up too, except I wouldn't be accepting his invitation for a date.

My original plan was to do more research about that Cabello's Filter Theory thing but I didn't end up doing anything because I figured I'd just freak myself out further. I need to relax. Whatever happens tomorrow, happens. Maybe we'll click. Maybe we'll be friends or maybe there will be the opportunity for something more. Or maybe there won't...maybe we'll be disgustingly incompatible, even as friends, and never want to see each other again.

God, I hope not. I want this to amount to something so bad.

I want a reason other than my guilt to live."


	3. Chapter 3

It's been over 200 years since the last time Lauren went on a date. That fact alone makes her uncertain for the date that she is about to go on with the very girl who accidentally rammed her car the other day. But that's not the only reason she's a bit skeptical.

Lauren never had much luck with dating even back when her life was normal.

In high school, she had one serious boyfriend for almost a year. His name was Luis and she had all of her important firsts with him—first date, first kiss, first prom, and of course, her first time. As time passed in their relationship, however, she felt like she was settling. She was attached to him only because he was so many of her firsts. They took cute pictures and looked like a cute couple from the outside, but in reality, Lauren lost the passion and affection about halfway through the relationship. The only reason she didn't dump him was because she felt like she had nothing better to do. The day that she moved away to college, she broke his heart and never looked back.

During her first two years of college, she went on her share of dates with boys. She found a common pattern with every single date that she went on—they only wanted her body. They wanted to fuck. They wanted to have some no strings attached fun, and if you even mentioned the possibility of something serious, they'd run. So she'd have the occasional hookup, yet she'd never feel fulfilled partly because the boys sucked in bed. Though mostly, it wasn't fulfilling to her emotionally. She wanted to connect. She wanted something more than just sex.

Then, in her third year of college, she met Lucy. Up until this point, she identified strictly as straight. Sure, she had her share of "girl crushes" – who wouldn't find celebrities like Megan Fox and Amber Heard attractive? Meeting Lucy completely destroyed her perception and confidence of her own sexuality. The two of them bonded and connected quickly on a level that surpassed any connection Lauren shared with any of her other friends.

That's all they were for a few months. Just friends. Deep down, both of them knew that it went deeper than that. Lauren looked forward to spending time with Lucy the most out of anyone. She started to crave her presence and felt her heart pounding and her cheeks flushing whenever she would see her friend.

Lucy was the one to make the first move. They had just smoked a couple bowls in Lauren's apartment and were watching an indie movie, their bodies close under a blanket on the couch. Neither of them were paying much attention to the movie, though. Lucy scooted closer to Lauren and made her advances very cautiously, ensuring that the other girl was comfortable every step of the way. As their faces leaned in and their lips inched closer, Lucy whispered to Lauren to stop her if she didn't want this.

Lauren didn't stop her.

From that day forward, it became clear that they were more than just friends. Lauren had never felt like this with anyone before. Not Luis, and certainly not any of her past hookups. The one and only thing that was stopping them from putting a label on it was Lauren's internalized homophobia.

She was raised in a primarily conservative household. Her dad would always scoff in disgust whenever a gay couple was portrayed on TV, and her brother would constantly use the words "gay" and "faggot" as insults. All of these little anti-gay actions and behaviors that she was exposed to growing up added up. She wasn't outwardly homophobic like most of her family; she had plenty of gay friends at college and wholeheartedly supported gay rights. But there was no way in hell that she was gay. She's straight. That's how she always has been.

Her feelings for Lucy confused her. The way that the other girl made her cum so hard while no boy could ever even get close. She definitely felt more passion than she ever felt while she was dating Luis.

But there was no way she was gay.

No, she was just experimenting. Don't all college girls do that? Straight girls hook up with other girls all the time in college. It was common culture. She knew deep down that she and Lucy weren't just hooking up, though.

They acted like a couple. They spent almost all their time with one another—they were attached at the hip and inseparable. They held hands, they kissed, they had sex, they cuddled, and they said 'I love you' to each other. The subject of labeling what they were, however, would always lead to a fight.

There's a saying that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. That you don't truly appreciate the person's company and realize how much they mean to you until it's too late. Lauren learned this the hard way. Halfway through her senior year, Lucy brought up the one subject that was taboo for them for the last time. She cried, stating that she wants Lauren. That she feels stupid for wanting to put a label on it, but if Lauren truly loves her as much as Lucy loves her, then the label should be as big of a deal to Lauren as it is to her. She wanted to bring Lauren to meet her family in Colombia. She wanted to meet Lauren's family. She wanted to build a future and family with Lauren.

Lauren didn't know how to respond. She kept saying "I don't know" as Lucy begged and tried to get some type of response out of her. But as it became clear that this conversation—and this relationship—wasn't going to go anywhere, Lucy walked away. And Lauren never heard from her again. Lucy promptly blocked Lauren off of all social media, and any attempt to contact her was useless. She never saw her on campus or anywhere again.

It's tragic that it took something like that to make Lauren realize how much she really did love Lucy. It took something like that to make her realize that she does love girls and that it's okay. The connection she shared with Lucy was like none other, and she grew scared that she would never share that with anyone else again.

She tried to find it in meaningless hookups, but this time with girls. Even with other girls, there was nothing. Even with the prettiest girls who could have been considered models, the sex was empty and left Lauren more broken with each hookup as it hit her how badly she fucked up.

If she could have gotten over her internalized, self-loathing homophobia, she probably would have stayed with Lucy. She would have never volunteered to be part of this experiment, and she could have lived the rest of her life with normal feelings with her family. But it's too late to think about the "what ifs," and frankly, because of her apathy toward everything, she decides that she couldn't care less about the past.

Lucy is dead and has been for probably 150 years. All of her bad dating experiences happened two hundred years ago. Tonight, she won't be thinking about any of them at all. She'll only be focused on Camila.

Having a significant amount of free time before the date, Lauren decided to spruce herself up as much as possible. When they met the first time, she wasn't wearing any makeup and she had barely brushed her hair. Tonight, Lauren's hair is straightened, her eyes are accentuated with a dark eyeshadow and winged eyeliner, and her lips are colored a deep, dark red. She wears a long-sleeved black shirt and maroon pants, and black ankle boots. She's not used to having a winter wardrobe, as she always lived in warm climates, but she's trying to make do the best she can.

At 6:05 PM, precisely five minutes after the time that they agreed on over the phone yesterday, Lauren receives a text from Camila.

Camila: I'm here! :) I'm pulled up right in front of the door.

Lauren swallows the sudden nerves that have built up in her throat from reading the text and heads into the elevator after grabbing her black peacoat. The ride down to the ground floor only takes about thirty seconds, but it feels like thirty minutes as she begins to go over irrational possibilities of what could go wrong in her head yet again. The elevator dings when it reaches its destination, interrupting and stopping all of these anxious thoughts. It's now or never, and all Lauren can do is let the universe work this out. If it's mean to be, it will be. If not, then it won't. Whatever happens, happens, and she is prepared to go with the flow.

Before she steps out into the freezing winter air that still plagues the city, she slips the coat onto her body. It's more of a formality and an image concern—she is still unable to feel how cold the air is, but she knows that her body would still get hypothermia even if she didn't feel it. Also, people would stare if she walked around coatless in weather this cold.

The same, familiar car that bumped into Lauren's sits right in front of the door as Camila said it would.

It's not an expensive car. It's not a dumpy old car either. It's just a regular, four-door sedan that looks to be recently purchased in the last two or three years. When the accident happened, Lauren only looked at the damage to her own car in her blinding rage. She never even glanced at Camila's.

Now that she isn't so angry that she could kill a man, Lauren observes the damage to Camila's front bumper. There's a small crack on one of the lights, but it's not nearly as bad as the crack on Lauren's rear bumper. She doesn't want to spend too much time staring at the damage, though. Ideally, she wants to put the accident behind her.

Opening the passenger door, her eyes meet Camila's for the first time. And this time, she's really looking at her. She's not distracted by her rage. This time, she can truly appreciate how beautiful this girl is.

Her black hair is tied up into a high bun on top of her head, and her eyeliner is perfectly winged—a skill that Lauren had never been able to accomplish easily. When she greets Lauren with a smile, she flashes her teeth that could be displayed in a Colgate commercial because they are so straight and white.

"Hey!" Camila beams. "How are you?"

"I mean, I'm going on a date with a gorgeous girl, so I'd say I'm pretty fucking great," Lauren turns her charm and charisma on to maximum overdrive. She's always been a natural flirt, and it's clear that she hasn't lost her skills when these words make Camila blush. Climbing into the passenger seat, she shuts the door and buckles her seatbelt. The car smells nice, like strawberries. There must be an air freshener somewhere.

"Oh, wow. Keep flirting like that all night and I'll be a tomato," Camila scratches her neck awkwardly. Though she is a beautiful girl, Lauren gets the impression that she doesn't go out on dates too often. "Is the temperature in the car okay? I can turn it colder if it's too hot. It's just so cold outside."

She can't say that she didn't feel any temperature change at all because of her damaged nerve cells, so she just smiles graciously and says, "It's perfect. Mind if I ask where we're going?"

"You'll see when we get there," Camila shifts the car into drive.

Lauren wonders what her idea of a surprise is. They have absolutely no idea of anything about each other except their names pretty much, so how could Camila choose a restaurant that is a safe first date choice? Lauren would never risk a surprise like this—knowing her luck, she'd choose her favorite ethnic restaurant only for her date to despise that type of food. But she ignores the urge to be difficult and push further, and simply allows Camila to take control of the reigns tonight.

To her delight, the car ride is uneventful. There are no accidental crashes, sliding into other cars, or getting pulled over. Camila simply drives about five minutes to a parking garage, the two of them making idle banter about the song on the radio or the weather along the way.

Before Camila unlocks the doors to let them out, she opens the glove compartment and pulls something out. A small piece of cloth...it's a blindfold.

Lauren's stomach drops and her eyes widen as she makes eye contact with the material in the girl's hand. Is this girl a psychopath? Is she about to be murdered right here and right now, just because she wanted to go on a date with a cute girl and hopefully feel emotions again?

"Hey, relax, I'm just trying to surprise you," Camila hands Lauren the blindfold, laughing nervously at the girl's visible fear. "If you don't want to put it on that's fine with me too...I just thought it would be fun."

"O-Oh yeah, of course," Lauren laughs with her, tying the cloth around her head just tightly enough for it to not slip off. "Okay, surprise me. But like.... I'd also appreciate if you helped me not run into a wall or something."

"Think of this as a trust exercise," Camila exits the car and opens the passenger door, helping her date stand up. Her hands rest on both of Lauren's shoulders, her touch light and gentle as she starts to lead her through the parking garage onto the street. She walks adjacent to her, their bodies close and intimate due to this little 'trust exercise.'

"I think the trust exercise was me getting in the car with you and trusting you not to ram us into another car," Lauren mutters sarcastically.

"Oooh. Ouch. That was a low blow, Lauren," Camila giggles. "Maybe remember you can't see anything right now and I'm your one and only guide to not walking in the middle of the busy streets of Chicago and getting hit by a car?"

"Psh, I doubt you could even hurt an ant," Lauren scoffs. She jests, but there's a part of her that wonders if she's about to be pushed in front of a bus. Maybe she should save her snarky attitude for when she can actually see.

"Hey, ants have feelings too," the shorter girl argues.

After about a two-minute walk, the bustling sounds of the Chicago streets dies down. Through the blindfold, Lauren can sense that the light of their environment has changed. They must be inside of a building now. She's led into a small space with a smell of an elevator. The sound of a high pitched ding confirms that she is, indeed, in an elevator right now.

Lauren contemplates what type of restaurant requires you to get in an elevator. She assumes that the ride will be short, but after thirty seconds, they still haven't reached their destination.

"Um...Camila, is the elevator broken?" Lauren asks. "I mean, assuming that we're even in one right now."

"Patience is a virtue," is all Camila says in response. Lauren is a bit annoyed but she's impressed with how far Camila has taken this. Hopefully, the reveal won't be disappointing, because that would be embarrassing for both of them.

Finally, the elevator comes to a stop and the doors open. Lauren is led a few feet into the new room before Camila removes the blindfold from her eyes.

"Hope you don't mind heights!" Camila steps in front of Lauren with a wide grin on her face, her arms held up in the air.

Lauren's jaw drops.

It doesn't look like they're in a building at all. There aren't any walls and there certainly isn't any type of floor underneath them. Tall skyscrapers surround her in every direction and when she looks to her feet, she only sees the headlights of cars and tiny specks of people. Camila is absolutely living for Lauren's reaction.

"Do you like it?" Camila asks. "If not, we can go somewhere else. I won't be insulted, it's fine."

"Do I like it?" Lauren repeats Camila's question carefully before her surprised expression turns into one of pure joy. An uncontrollable grin spreads across her face. This is the happiest she's felt since waking up. "I fucking love it. Holy shit. This isn't just beautiful...it's fucking amazing. You're really good with surprises."

"Good," Camila heaves a large sigh of relief. "I thought you hated it for a second. That was scary. Phew."

She turns around and approaches the front desk, muttering her name to them. The hostess leads them to their table.

The table is covered with a white tablecloth. The chairs are cushioned with only the finest red fabric, and a candle sits in the center of the table which the hostess lights before leaving them to look over the menu. This is obviously an upscale restaurant—when Lauren opens the menu and glances at the prices, her stomach drops.

Thirty fucking dollars for a salad. An appetizer salad.

She may be loaded because of the incentive from the experiment, but prices like these will never fail to be absurd. Even with a lot of money, she feels like these prices are heavily inflated. Why spend so much money for something that probably tastes the same in an obscure restaurant that not many people have heard of? Hell, the obscure restaurant might even have better food.

"Hey, don't worry about the prices, my best friend is the manager here and I had her pull some strings for us. She owed me a favor, that's how we're even here in the first place," Camila puts a comforting hand on Lauren's. The very skin-on-skin contact feels electrifying to Lauren, which contradicts her inability to feel anything. This girl is just a walking contradiction to Lauren's very existence.

"Yeah, wow, this is really fucking expensive," Lauren shakes her head. "This is impressive, though. What is this restaurant?"

"Wait...you really don't know where we are right now?" Camila raises her eyebrows.

Fuck. Did Lauren mess up? Should this be common knowledge? Did she just expose how she doesn't belong in this time period?

"No...?" Lauren shakes her head slowly. Her reflexes prepare her to flee in case this turns south.

"We're on the Skydeck. Well, the Skydeck Restaurant. It's part of the Wright Tower?"

"The Wright Tower...?" Lauren racks her brain for memories of her limited knowledge of Chicago. She barely knew anything about this city even when she was considered normal.

"You know...tallest building in the city? One of the tallest buildings in the world?" Camila raises an eyebrow at Lauren's confusion. "You must not be from around here."

Ohhh. This is probably the Willis Tower, or what was formerly called the Sears Tower. Lauren is about to say that but then stops herself, realizing that it would probably expose her further. If she referred to this building as those names and it hadn't gone by that for centuries, it would be obvious.

So she just goes along with the explanation that Camila has come up with that she isn't from here. It is true. "Yeah, I'm from Miami. I just moved here last month actually."

"Really? I'm from Miami too," Camila perks up. "What a coincidence! What did you move here for?"

She hates that every question Camila asks forces her to quickly think of a lie. For starters, she's never been the best liar. Even when she does lie successfully, she doesn't enjoy it. And she certainly doesn't like lying to this genuinely kind girl who just wants to get to know Lauren better. But to protect herself, she must. She wouldn't be lying like this in any other scenario.

"I needed a change of scenery. I just finished college and I certainly didn't want to go back home, so I came here. I might try to apply to one of the schools here and get my Masters, I don't know," Lauren shrugs. Lying becomes easier when part of it is the truth. It's easier to pass it off as the mere facts, and it's easier on her moral compass.

"Where did you go to school and what did you study? I'm actually in my final year right now, I go to DePaul," Camila says.

"I went to UCLA for Psychology. Yeah...kind of a blowoff since I don't really plan on getting a doctorate in it," Lauren sighs with a shrug. And that's why she's here, hundreds of years into the future. "What about you?"

"Elementary education," Camila tells her. "I don't think Psychology is a blowoff. It's really interesting and you can still get good jobs without a doctorate. And I think that you should focus more on your passions than a paycheck."

"You're studying to be an elementary school teacher?" Lauren raises her eyebrows.

"Yep!"

"That's cute," Lauren smiles at the image of Camila surrounded by elementary aged children. She's only known this girl for about thirty minutes, but she can definitely picture her in that profession. She certainly has the temperament and personality for the job.

A waiter comes around and takes their food and drink orders. As the two of them order, Lauren observes the waiter carefully, looking for signs that he is indeed an AI like Ally informed her yesterday. He appears, acts, and behaves exactly like an actual human being. However, upon close inspection, there's a thin circle in the center of his iris. This must be the tell-tale sign that he's not human.

The waiter leaves them alone again, allowing them to continue their conversation.

"Chicago is a nice city. I chose it on a whim. I just wanted to get away from home too and wanted the feel of a city, but not something as intense as New York. So now I'm here," Camila shrugs. "And then I kind of just I fell in love with this city."

"I hope I do, too," Lauren says. "I admittedly haven't been here long enough to form a solid opinion of it yet. Haven't gotten out of my apartment much...okay, fuck, that makes me sound like a loser. I promise I'm not that much of a loser."

"You, a loser? Not with that hot rod you drive," Camila jokes. "Even if you were a loser, you'd be a cute loser. The best type of loser. Me? I'm just a regular ol' loser."

"Nah, you'd definitely be one of the cute losers. In fact, you might even be the leader," Lauren grins, her words causing the other girl to become flustered.

"Well, I'm actually happier that you're not familiar with the city. That means I get to show you around," Camila says, seeming to drift off into a fantasy of where she wants to take Lauren.

For an upscale restaurant, the food takes a surprisingly low amount of time to be delivered. Not even five minutes after the waiter leaves with their orders, he returns with their entrees. Camila ordered a plate of creamy pesto linguini with chicken, and Lauren ordered filet mignon. The presentation and plating look like something straight off of Food Network. When Lauren takes her first bite, she's at least glad that the food meets the outrageous prices.

"So, what high school did you go to in Miami?" Camila asks. "You're a year older than me, right? Cause you just finished college? Ha, what if we went to the same high school and didn't know it?"

"Yeah, I'm....22?" Lauren replies, accidentally making her response seem like a question as she tried to recall her age. She talks quickly over it, hoping Camila didn't notice or mind. She figures that she might as well just name the school she actually went to—the chances of Camila going to the same school are slim. Hopefully, it wasn't demolished or anything. "I went to Carrollton."

"Oh, wow. That private school, right? Pretty tough admissions and expensive? That's impressive," Camila nods. "I went to Palmetto."

Lauren figures that Camila probably thinks that she's this snobby rich kid living off of her daddy's money. She can't exactly explain otherwise to Camila, so she supposes she just has to live with that assumption if it exists.

Lauren opens her mouth to reply but ends up getting interrupted by a tall woman in a classy dress approaching the table. She has long blonde locks, olive skin, and a wide grin on her face. This is probably Camila's friend.

"Look at you, Chancho! You told me you had a date but you didn't tell me she was this hot," the woman walks up to Camila, the two of them sharing a quick embrace.

"Dinah, this is Lauren. Lauren, this is my best friend, Dinah...also the reason why we're even here tonight," Camila introduces the two of them. Lauren extends a hand for Dinah to shake, but Dinah ignores it and goes in for a full hug. She's certainly intimate with her interactions.

"You woulda been waiting a good six months to get in had it not been for me," Dinah pats herself on the chest, closing her eyes and smiling at the thought of her own charitable act.

"Let's not forget that this wasn't just out of the kindness of your heart," Camila crosses her arms and smirks at Dinah. Lauren wonders why Dinah owed Camila such a large favor, but she has a feeling that neither of them is about to tell her. "But it really does mean a lot. You're a lifesaver, thanks."

"Thank you so much, Dinah," Lauren says graciously to her.

"No need to thank me....me, the best wingwoman and best friend in all of history," Dinah continues to glorify herself, causing Camila to roll her eyes. "I'll leave you two alone now. Let me know if you need anything!"

Camila and Lauren wave goodbye to the woman. "She's really nice to do that for us," Lauren notes. "How long have you been friends with her?"

"Since my first year of college. We were freshman roommates but we both went in blind. Miraculously it worked out and we lived together for two and a half more years. She just got her own apartment with her boyfriend this past year so I'm alone. I miss living with her, she was really messy but a lot of fun to be around."

"I know the feeling. Living alone gets lonely," Lauren agrees. She wonders what Camila's apartment is like. She has a feeling that it's nothing near the luxury of her own—not like that matters.

The two continue to eat their meals, finishing in a timely manner because of their large appetites and how tasty the food is. Camila is first to be done, slurping up the last linguini noodle before sitting back with a dramatic sigh of pleasure.

"I'll admit it, I normally would have ordered something like chicken nuggets or macaroni and cheese or something else off the kids' menu if I weren't trying to impress you," Camila pats her belly. "That hit the spot, though."

"Kids' menus will never stop being good. I don't get why we as a society have to label meals as kids' meals or adult meals. If I want to have some nuggets, I want to be able to order the damn nuggets the waiter looking at me like I'm an overgrown child!" Lauren agrees, going into a mini-rant. Her face softens as she continues. "But...you don't need to worry about impressing me, Camila. You impressed me the minute you had the courage to ask me out when I was screaming at you. And honestly, you've impressed me the entire night. The surprise...the restaurant...everything is just so amazing, really."

Camila is blushing. Hard. Even harder than she was earlier. It's like all of the blood from her brain has rushed to her cheeks, and she just wants to curl up into a ball and squeal from how much Lauren is complimenting her.

"But also, like...I don't want you to have to worry about impressing me. Really. If you were worried about it though, you don't even have to try. It comes naturally for you. You're extraordinary," Lauren finishes.

"You are seriously so sweet. Thank you so much, Lauren," Camila thanks her. "I'd say that if anyone here is amazing, though, it's you."

"Me? I haven't done anything. You put this all together and it really is great. Every single aspect," Lauren shakes her head.

"Shush. You're great, just take my compliment and don't protest it," Camila refuses to let her argue any further. "Are you ready? Dinah has the bill covered for us. I have something to show you."

"Yes. I'm excited to see what you have in store. Do I need to put the blindfold on again?" Lauren asks.

"No, the next part isn't too visually impressive so you don't need to be visually surprised by it. I guarantee you'll love it, though, c'mon," Camila stands up from the table and heads toward the elevator, with Lauren following like a whipped puppy.

The fact that the date isn't even over yet and Lauren is having this great of a time is a good sign. For the first time since waking up, Lauren has felt a constant emotion. It's happiness. She feels the motivation to get up and follow Camila. She wants to be around this girl more. She wants to talk with her for hours. This girl is making her feel, and she doesn't know how a single person could have this effect on her.

It doesn't make scientific sense. How could Camila evoke these emotions when no other person could? Why is it just this one girl? Maybe it isn't. Maybe these feelings are the sign of her other ones returning. Regardless, Lauren doesn't need to find out any scientific explanation. She doesn't need to justify this in her head in any way. All that matters is that with Camila, she is happy. She doesn't need to know anything else.

Lauren enters the elevator and they begin the descent to the ground. She hopes that this happiness will last.


	4. Chapter 4

Ever since moving to the city, Camila knew there was something magical about winter in Chicago.

Though sunny summer days permit walks through the various parks and perhaps a more comfortable climate, there's an atmosphere that doesn't compare to when a blanket of snow covers the city.

Her favorite thing about this time of year is Christmas and how the city decorates the streets for it. How she can hear Christmas tunes being played throughout nearly every store on the famed Magnificent Mile, and how the holiday spirit is infectious among everyone. Although that time has since passed, it's still the perfect weather for enjoying a cup of hot cocoa.

One of the top reasons she looks forward to winter is because of the ice skating rink across from Millennium Park.

It's free as long you bring your own skates, and even then, renting a pair only costs five dollars. Next to the rental stand is an indoor coffee kiosk where you can shelter yourself from the cold with your favorite hot beverage.

Camila normally goes to the rink with Dinah, but she's visited alone on a couple occasions. Sometimes, her favorite thing isn't skating. It's watching the people who are skating. She always has trouble holding in her laughter when she sees a little kid fall, and she can't help but smile at the couples who skate while holding each other's hands. She often finds herself drifting off into a fantasy—one where she is with someone special to her. The minute she visited the rink for the first time ever, she immediately knew that it was the perfect date spot.

She hasn't had the best luck dating either. Unlike Lauren, she doesn't have a history of exes who either broke her heart or got their heart broken because of her. She also doesn't have a history of casual sex.

It's not that she didn't want all of this. Camila was a normal girl who pined over boys in high school and then, eventually in college, girls. Contrary to Lauren, she was accepting of her sexuality and embraced it from the start. This wasn't the source of her problem. She just found that she would pine over people who could or would never want her back.

Thus, the moment she found herself her first ever opportunity to take someone out on a date, she couldn't resist going all out. Maybe it was a little extra. Maybe coercing her best friend into handing her a reservation at the five-star restaurant she managed and convincing her to pick up the tab for them as a little too much...especially for someone who was so mean to her initially.

But she's in her last year of college. God only knows how much longer it would have taken for another opportunity to fall in her lap, so she took this date and ran with it. She can only hope that Lauren warms up to it as much as she has.

"Well...here's part two," Camila points to the rink. "I hope you like ice skating! I mean...it's fine if you don't, we can just go on a walk through the park."

"I haven't gone skating in so fucking long, holy shit," Lauren's face lights up with a grin. Skating was never huge in Miami, simply because it's perpetually warm in South Florida. On a weekend, her and her friends would always go to the beach or go shopping—ice skating rarely ever crossed her mind. She went maybe once or twice with her family when she was younger. "I don't have skates though..."

"That's fine, we can rent them," Camila leads her to the rental booth, which is now automated. She withdraws ten dollars and deposits it into the machine without even giving Lauren a chance to stop her from paying, because she knows she would. "What size are you?"

"An eight," Lauren replies. "C'mon, I would have paid for my own. You treated us to a nice ass dinner."

"More like Dinah did," Camila taps the size 8 button and the size 7 for herself. Two pairs dispense in boxes at the bottom. "Now shush and put on your skates."

The girls take a seat on one of the benches near the public lockers, untying their boots and slipping on the ice skates. They store their shoes in the free locker that unlocks based on a thumbprint.

"I'm probably the clumsiest person in the world. Like, trip up the stairs clumsy," Camila warns Lauren as she stands up and they begin walking over to the rink. "But I've skated here a lot ever since I moved here and I haven't killed myself in a freak accident yet, so I'm proud."

"Yet. Keyword yet," Lauren arches an eyebrow.

"Wooow. Thanks for the vote of confidence," the younger girl shakes her head, feigning being hurt.

Right before they step onto the ice, it catches Camila's eye that Lauren's shoelaces are untied on her skates.

"Hold on," she stops the other girl from walking any further, bending down carefully and tying her shoes. "If anyone would have died here, it would have been you."

Lauren watches as Camila ties her skates, the smaller girl biting her lip in concentration as she makes sure that the knot is tight and won't slip. She has an unfortunate habit of forgetting to tie her shoes—this was present even in the first stage of her life. It has led to a few sad incidents of her absolutely eating shit, yet despite all of the times this has caused her embarrassment, she still continues to forget.

"Thanks," Lauren blushes. "Except I'm pretty sure it doesn't make a difference because these laces aren't long enough to cause anyone to fall."

"Boy, someone's stubborn," Camila stands up. "See, that's what you think. Then next thing you know, we're on an episode of '100,000 Ways To Die' – two gays on a date gone wrong. Death by ice skating shoelace."

100,000 Ways To Die? Damn, last thing I knew it was 1,000. Lauren remarks internally. She supposes the advancement in technology in society must have created a multitude of new stupid ways for someone to accidentally die.

With both of their shoelaces completely tied and everything ready, the two step onto the ice. They're both quite nervous at the moment, but both are doing the best they can to hide their nerves from one another. Camila may have more experience skating than Lauren, however she's aware of how clumsy she is. And how her clumsiness is probably exaggerating even further when she's trying to impress a cute girl. Lauren is just afraid that her body is going to fuck up in front of Camila...but even if she does fall, at least she won't feel the pain.

They stand stationary on the ice, each of them waiting for the other to begin skating. People skate around them, narrowly avoiding ramming into them and causing a disaster.

"Well?" Lauren raises an eyebrow, expecting Camila to initiate because this is her spot after all.

"Well..." Camila hoped that Lauren would initiate, as that girl emits confidence without a second effort.

Finally, Lauren figures that they can't just stand there forever. So she links her right arm with Camila's left and pushes off on the ice, her knees wobbling below her as they glide across the rink side by side.

Although it was shaky at first, they quickly become accustomed to skating alongside one another. Lauren is careful not to skate at too fast of a speed, and Camila focuses extra hard on keeping in rhythm with the older girl. They move together like clockwork, adapting to one another with ease.

"Not bad for a Miami girl," Camila notes how Lauren didn't fall flat on her face the second she stepped onto the ice.

"You know, I used to do competitive figure skating in high school," Lauren says nonchalantly.

Camila's jaw drops in amazement and her eyebrows raise, her eyes filling with fascination. "Really?" she asks in awe.

Lauren giggles. "No. You're gullible."

"Hey, don't be a meanie," Camila slaps Lauren on the arm, almost causing the girl to lose her balance and tumble over. "It's not like that was something crazy unbelievable! I wouldn't have believed you if you said you were an Olympic figure skater."

"Suuuure," Lauren shakes her head in sarcastic disbelief. "So I'm a meanie now, huh?'

"Yes," Camila unlinks her arm from Lauren, feigning upset. Crossing her arms, she pouts at the other girl.

In doing this, she loses focus on skating. And also causes a small bout of inattentional blindness on her part—she slams into a middle aged man in front of her, nearly toppling the both of them over. "Oh shit, sorry, sorry!" she apologizes profusely, only getting a dirty look from him as he skates away.

Lauren's almost about to pee herself laughing at the scene. She has to stop at the side of the rink, holding onto the railing and doubling over with tears brimming in her eyes. It honestly wasn't even that funny in the first place, but for some reason, she can't stop laughing.

She hasn't laughed this hard since waking up. And even before that, she hadn't laughed so hard in a while.

It feels good to be filled with joy again.

"And now you're laughing at my dismay?! Wow. You've been upgraded from Meanie to Mega Meanie," Camila stops at the side, watching her date attempt to catch her breath from laughing so hard.

"As long as I don't have to go to Meanie Hut Jr," Lauren wipes the tears from her cheeks. She's met with a look of confusion from Camila. "You know...like..Weenie Hut Jr.? From Spongebob?"

"Spongebob?" Camila furrows her eyebrows in confusion.

Oh shit. In those moments, Lauren completely forgot that she's from a different age. Apparently they don't have Spongebob in this day and age...how lame.

"Nothing," Lauren quickly brushes her off, changing the subject. Camila's arms are crossed again, and she has the fake-angry pout on her face that she expressed before running into the other man. Pulling the smaller girl into a tight embrace, she rubs her back and apologizes. "Hey, hey, I'm sorry. You're right, I'm being a meanie. I'll tone it down. Know what? I'll give you a free pass to be a Mega Meanie to me for the rest of the night. Like, I'll even let you push me over."

Camila shakes her head as the two pull away from the embrace, but she has a grin on her face now. "No, it's okay. I was just playing."

"You sure you don't want to push me down though? I'd want to push me down," Lauren shrugs, linking arms with Camila again and pushing off from the railing.

The younger girl unlinks their arms again. But this time, she does it to move her hand down and intertwine it with Lauren's.

The sensation of Camila taking her hand fills her with warmth. Literally. Her body felt neutral because of her dysfunctional nerve receptors, but the simple action of the younger girl holding her hand made her feel something she thought she would never feel again.

Warmth.

It's like the feeling of when you drink hot chocolate or another warm beverage on a cold day and venture outside. The air might be cold, but the hot drink acts like sort of an IV. The warmth pumps through your veins and, for a little while, you're not so sensitive to the brisk temperatures. You're actually warm.

However, Camila doesn't share Lauren's ability to be impervious to the cold. Lauren can feel the smaller girl's body shaking, and her teeth visibly clatter.

"Hey, you want to take a break to get some hot cocoa and warm up?" Lauren suggests.

"Y-Yes please," Camila shivers. They exit the rink, swap their shoes out from their locker, and head into the indoor shack with the coffee kiosk.

It's relatively small—maybe too small for the bustling population that the city holds in addition to the amount of tourists. But it's cozy. An electric fireplace is the main source of heat in the room other than the heating unit. A line extends almost to the door of people ordering coffee and hot chocolate.

Camila audibly moans from relief as the warm air soothes her freezing skin. "Oh thank god," she says as they take their spot in the line.

Turning to Lauren, she asks, "Are you more of a coffee or hot chocolate person?"

"Tea, honestly," Lauren shrugs. She never really drank much of either hot chocolate or coffee. She never acquired the taste for the bitter drink that so many coffee drinkers did, and even with adding a diabetes-inducing amount of sweetener and other flavors to her coffee drinks, they'd still be barely tolerable. Hot chocolate was a nice treat now and then, but as a Florida native and at school in California, there was never much of a need for it. She drank tea the most.

"Oh, so you're elitist, huh?" Camila raises an eyebrow. "Hot chocolate not good enough for you?"

"Wow, lots of name calling and accusations tonight," Lauren laughs. "I just never drank it that much because I've always lived in warm climates. I'll get it tonight. I take it you're a hot chocolate enthusiast?"

"Yeah. Chocolate milk is my favorite drink and the fact that hot chocolate is just a warm version of it makes it the love of my life," Camila nods eagerly. "I drink coffee now and then too. I used to hate it but college kind of forced me to love it."

"No wonder you're so short," Lauren jokes.

"Hey, you're like, an inch taller than me!" Camila argues.

They're too focused on their own conversation to notice that they've made it to the front of the line and people behind them are glaring. The first thing that Lauren sees and is slightly taken aback by is that there are no baristas. Human or AI. It's just a machine that must brew the drink inside of it and also acts as the cash register.

Noticing Lauren's shock, Camila comments on it as she punches in her own order of a medium peppermint hot chocolate. "What, never used one of these before?"

"It's a machine? I...I don't get it. Why aren't there actual people making our drinks?" Lauren asks. She decides to test the limits of the machine by selecting extra vanilla and whipped cream to be added to her own drink. "Like, isn't this essentially just a coffee and hot chocolate dispenser that you'd see in a grocery store?"

"Um...probably because there's less errors. And no, because every drink made in these is fresh. Like, freshly steamed and everything. I've actually never been to a coffee shop without one of these machines," Camila squints at Lauren. "Is it different out west?"

"Yeah," Lauren internally beats herself up. She probably shouldn't have questioned it so heavily—knowing her luck, there isn't a single coffee shop in the entire world without these machines.

"Interesting. Well, I guess I did hear that the west is a little...different," Camila shrugs.

"Always has been," Lauren mutters under her breath, sliding her card into the machine before Camila even has a chance to grab her own.

"Thank you," Camila smiles gratefully at her as the machine whirrs, brewing their drinks faster than any human or AI could possibly do. When they dispense, they pick them up and head to one of the tables near the fireplace that just opened up.

Taking a sip of her first completely machine-brewed hot chocolate, Lauren's mouth nearly drops open at how good it tastes. It's probably better than anything she's ever ordered, even in the most expensive coffee shops. It doesn't taste like it came straight out of a machine. "Wow," she comments. "Okay, I can definitely see why those machines exist."

"Great, huh?" Camila sips her own beverage. "So, tell me more about the west and their supposedly weird ways. I've never been there."

If Lauren could sweat right now, she would. She'd be drenched in sweat because she isn't prepared to deal with this question. She wasn't trained in how to answer this. For whatever reason, Camila believes that the west coast is "different" – to be fair, the culture was always different, even back in Lauren's day. They were always more progressive, laid-back, and the culture was nearly a complete 180 from the high-strung, type A culture of the east coast.

She decides the best plan of action right now would be to gauge what Camila already perceives and knows about the west coast and then build off of that.

"Well, what makes you think that they're so weird out there?" Lauren questions innocently.

"I mean... look at you! Sometimes you seem so clueless about the things that seem so simple to me. Like when I synced my contact info to your phone, and the machines. Stuff like that," Camila shrugs. "Not that it's bad. But it makes sense, now that I think about it. I'm always reading stuff on the Internet about how people out there are hipster in the sense that they do things the old-fashioned way."

Lauren almost feels like she could lose her entire drink right now as well as everything else thatis in her stomach. She initially thought she was decent at hiding her ignorance to society today, but apparently not. Apparently Camila has been noticing. She'll need to work on that harder.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Lauren bluffs, gulping a large mouthful of her drink to hide it cracking from nervousness. "It's extremely hipster out there. Especially at my school... at UCLA, like, so much that I'd even forget about everything else."

"That's interesting," Camila seems to buy it.

"It was! It was really cool. I took a history of California course for one semester and apparently California culture has always been a little strange compared to the rest of the country. Guess that hasn't changed," Lauren shrugs.

"I'll have to visit one day. I love experiencing and learning about different ways of living," Camila smiles.

Lauren sighs a breath of relief. She has no idea if anything she said was true. For all she knows, Camila is just reading weird articles from the super hipster neighborhoods of LA and everything else is a lie. Hopefully Camila won't go researching, or hopefully she doesn't have any friends who are from California that could correct her wildly inaccurate lies.

"You have a..." Lauren changes the subject as soon as she sees that Camila has developed a small hot chocolate mustache on the top of her lips. Handing her a napkin from across the table, the younger girl wipes her lips.

"Thanks," Camila blushes.

They sit for a few more minutes, finishing up the rest of their drinks and commentating on the other customers in the shack. The two of them take turns creating fake backstories for the people standing in line—Camila's backstories are so wild that Lauren almost chokes on her drink a couple times.

Finally, they each take their last sip and throw it in the trash. "You down to skate a little more?" Camila asks.

"Of course," Lauren nods eagerly. They exit the shack, heading toward their lockers and changing back into the skates. "Did the hot cocoa help warm you up?"

"Feels like Miami in July all over inside," Camila answers. Walking over to the rink, they note that the traffic on it has significantly reduced while they were sitting inside. It is a bit later in the night—about 10:00 PM on a weeknight—so that makes sense. It's not completely barren but there's a lot more room now.

"They should play music out here," Lauren comments. She takes ahold of Camila's hand once more as they step onto the ice and begin skating around the edges.

"They play Christmas music in December," Camila informs her.

"Why not play it all the time in the winter?" Lauren asks.

"Christmas music?"

"Why the hell not? I fucking love Christmas music," Lauren shrugs.

"Yeah? What's your favorite song?" Camila questions.

"I really like Silent Night."

"Sing a little bit of it."

Lauren's eyebrows raise at Camila's challenge. Her friends and family have always told her she has a lovely singing voice, but she's never believed it. She only sings in the shower, in her car, or when she's wasted in the club.

"You can't be serious," Lauren shakes her head. "You really want me to look like a fool in front of you!"

"I mean, it's about time. I ran into a man and had a hot chocolate mustache. It's your turn," Camila smirks. "But I'm sure you have a nice singing voice. You just seem like you would."

"Hey, both of those were endearing. This is just going to be sad," Lauren frowns.

"Please?" Camila pouts, pulling off her best puppy-dog-eyes. "Pretty pleeease?"

"Fine," Lauren groans. She sings the first few lines softly, all while her cheeks flush with embarrassment.

But her singing isn't embarrassing at all. Camila is almost convinced that an angel has descended from the heavens, and somehow she managed to hit her with her car and also score a date with her. How else could anyone have a voice so silky and soothing?

Lauren stops when she sees Camila staring at her in disbelief. "W-What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Lauren, your voice is beautiful. That was beautiful," she compliments her. "Wow. I was gonna sing after you to make you feel better if you were really that bad—because, trust me, I'm pretty bad myself—but damn."

"You're just being nice," Lauren brushes her compliments off, though it does feel good to be flattered.

"No, I'm giving praise where it's due," Camila says. "I'm being completely serious. You're amazing. I'm not about to tell you to drop everything and go try to break into the music industry because, let's be real, the music industry is fucking crazy. But c'mon, at least be a little more confident in your own abilities!"

"I'll take it into account. Thank you, Camila," Lauren considers her words and thanks her gratefully. She always figured that her family and friends were lying to her just to not hurt her feelings, but for whatever reason, she trusts this girl's word without a second question.

Maybe she's throwing herself into the deep end too presumptuously. Maybe she's letting herself fall in love with an idea. Who knows? This might not work out. This date is going wonderfully, but maybe it's a one-time miracle. Lauren has convinced herself that she doesn't deserve a happy love life, and the universe has shown her this several times.

But on the other hand, Camila is helping her feel things she thought she was unable to feel. She has felt a bursting sense of joy throughout this entire night. Camila literally made her feel warm.

She truly thought she would never feel some of these things again.

What is so special about this girl?

Lauren and Camila had stopped at the railing during the tail end of the conversation because they couldn't skate and talk at the same time. The two girls face one another, their focus completely on one another. They don't hear the child crying in the background because she fell and hurt her knee. They don't hear the police sirens in the distance. All they see—and all they can hear—is each other.

Their faces gradually inching closer together wasn't intentional. Neither of them even noticed it was happening in the first place until the distance has almost completely closed.

There's something to be said about kissing. The first kiss you share with someone, in Lauren's opinion, is always the most magical. Even if they're just a random hookup you met at a party, it evokes a feeling that can't be matched. And it's even better when you actually care for the person.

The kiss itself might be okay. It might be amazing, or it might be disgusting. But Lauren's favorite part about first kisses isn't the kiss itself. It's the moment before the actual kiss.

The moment when your heads tilt slightly to accommodate the other, like two puzzle pieces finding their match. Your eyelids shut as the distance closes ever so slowly—sometimes before they close, you can see the other person smiling. And you can feel yourself grinning too. The anticipation builds up, everything else stops, and in that moment, the kiss is all that you care about. It's all that you can think about.

And this moment before kissing Camila is even more magical than any that Lauren has ever experienced.

She hears Camila sigh—it's not a sigh of disappointment, it's more of a purr—as their lips finally touch.

Before Lauren even gets the chance to taste Camila's fruity chapstick, and before Camila even gets the chance to feel Lauren's soft, pillowy lips move against her own, they're rudely interrupted.

Not by another person, but by physics.

See, when they were gradually inching closer to one another, Lauren's hands found Camila's arms and grabbed them gently. This resulted in them moving slowly across the ice. It was slow enough to the point that they didn't notice (although they were so entranced in the kiss that they probably wouldn't have noticed if it was a large amount anyway), but they were moving.

Lauren, being so engulfed in the passion of the moment, made a move to pull Camila's body closer to her own—and that's where everything went wrong. The two of them ended up slipping as a result of this action, and the next thing they know, they're on the floor of the rink, Camila on top of Lauren.

"Holy shit!" Camila gasps. "Are you okay?! Fuck, I'm sorry!"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Lauren answers. She didn't feel anything, but she honestly wouldn't be surprised if she somehow cut her head open and is bleeding everywhere. That would be her luck. "Are you? Don't apologize, it's my fault."

"Yeah," Camila nods.

"I'm not bleeding out onto the ice, am I?" Lauren half-jokes, though she is actually serious.

Camila glances at Lauren's head. "Nope, all good," she tells her. The two lay in silence for a few seconds, just staring at one another in silence, before they both burst out in laughter.

"Wow. What a date," Lauren says after they calm down. "A really fucking good one at that."

She uses the railing to help herself stand up, then extends a hand to pull Camila up. The two of them skate to the exit, remove their skates, and return them to the rental shack after putting on their normal shoes.

"It's getting late. I'll drive you home," Camila yawns, checking her watch.

Lauren kind of wants to invite Camila inside her apartment. She wants her to spend the night—hell, she'd go all the way with her without a second thought. Multiple times. In the same night. For the first time in too long, she feels like herself again. She didn't even feel like this before starting the experiment.

She's willing to take it slow, though. And part of her wants to take it slow, too. With all of her other exes and hookups, she felt like she moved too fast with them. She's willing to savor every single moment with this girl and wait as long as it is necessary.

When Camila's car pulls up in front of Lauren's apartment, she resists the urge to ask her to come inside with her. Instead, she just smiles over at the other girl.

"That was amazing, Camila. I loved every part of it. You definitely get the award for best date planner ever," Lauren tells her. "When can I see you again?"

"Well, I'm pretty busy with class for the rest of the week, but I'm free all weekend," Camila ponders.

"Perfect. Text me so I know you got home safe, okay? Then we can plan actual details," Lauren says. She's eager to see this girl again. She wants to see her tomorrow, but to her dismay, that just isn't possible. So she'll bite her tongue and try to be as patient as possible.

"Of course," Camila nods. As Lauren begins to open the car door, she interrupts her. "Wait!"

"What?" Lauren turns to her, closing the door with a confused look.

This time, Lauren doesn't get to experience the pre-kiss anticipation, because Camila goes in for it without a warning. The younger girl cups Lauren's cheek with one hand, pulling her closer as her lips find hers, and rests the other on her neck.

This time, Lauren does get the chance to taste Camila's chapstick – it tastes like strawberries. And Camila gets to feel Lauren's soft lips against their own – they truly do feel like she's kissing a cloud.

Neither of them deepen it or initiate tongue. It lasts for a few seconds, and then right when Lauren is really getting into it, Camila pulls away with a grin. "Had to finish what we started earlier. Goodnight, Lauren."

"G-Goodnight," Lauren stutters, hardly able to catch her breath. The next thing she knows, she has exited the car and Camila has driven away.

No one has ever been able to leave her this speechless before. And, for the rest of the night, she feels something that doesn't fade. Something that doesn't dull as the minutes pass: happiness.


	5. Chapter 5

"Day 36

I know I'm alive because I feel my heart beating – no, not beating.

Racing. Pounding. Thumping.

When she held my hand tonight, I felt something that I hadn't experienced since I woke up. Warmth. I don't know how it's possible but it happened. This girl filled me with warmth.

And when she kissed me before I got out of the car tonight, my heart raced. It was more intense than when it raced of anger from the car crash...it lingered. Whenever I think about the kiss... or even just her... it starts racing again.

Being isolated for a month led me to over-contemplate my existence. I tried thinking up as many scientific and existential scenarios possible about how I am alive right now, and if I even am alive. I thought over and over again about how the life I was living was not truly one worth living in the first place because I was basically a rock. But when I was with her tonight, I didn't think about that for a second. I look back at tonight and I think about how there's no way that I'm not alive.

She makes my body react in ways that I didn't think were possible after waking up. She makes me feel... hope.

I've never been the biggest believer in fate. The idea that you are put on this Earth to fulfill a certain destiny and you can't stray from that path at all? Bullshit.

But... I do think that we meet everyone for a reason. Even if it's just a thirty-second encounter with a stranger on the street, you might have done or said something to change their lives in the long run, or they might have done that to you. I wholeheartedly believe that I met Camila for a reason.

I'm alive, and god, for the first time in 36 days, I am happy that this is true."

These are the words that Lauren writes before collapsing onto her bed with a grin that spread across her entire face. Moments from her date that night was all that she could think about as she closes her eyes and attempts to drift off to sleep that night. The joyous sound of Camila's giggles and laughter that Lauren evoked with her stupid sense of humor ring in her ears. The sight of the other girl's chocolate eyes gazing into Lauren's attentively whenever the green-eyed girl would speak. Camila has a way of making people feel like they're the only two people in the room when she is talking to them. Neither a baby's shrill, abrupt cries in the background nor the shocking sound of a glass plate breaking nearby was enough to distract the girl from their conversation. Most people's attention would break from these things – they would turn their heads toward the sound, pretend to be listening but only be absorbing half of the information, then laughing no matter what was said to try to compensate for the disengagement. Not Camila, though. Her attention belonged solely to Lauren throughout the entire date. This was, perhaps, one of her favorite things about the other girl.

But she already has a lot of favorite things about Camila. She debated writing them down in list format in her journal, yet decided against it at the very last minute, not wanting to be too presumptuous or excited. Lauren's used to things going wrong in her life – specifically relationships. She doesn't want to get her hopes up only to be broken down and set back to exactly where she started: on the balcony of her high-rise apartment, genuinely debating suicide just to try to feel something again.

Just as she's about to fall asleep, Lauren's phone dings with a text notification. Her eyelids shoot open and her hand reaches to grab the device in record time.

Speak of the devil ... or, perhaps for Lauren, speak of the angel. It's Camila.

Camila: Got home safe without incident or accident (to your surprise. Yeah that's right I'm teasing myself before you can haHA take THAT)

But really tho I had a great time tonight. Hope you did too :):)

Lauren rolls her eyes and snickers at Camila's self-deprecation. She's not going to lie, though – that is exactly how she would have responded if Camila hadn't said it for her. Maybe she's too predictable.

Lauren: I had a great time tonight too!! Thankyou again for dinner, you're seriously the best date planner and an amazing person all around.

You said that you're free next weekend?

Camila: Dawww thanks Lauren you're too sweet stop!!!! you're still making me blush

Yep!!! I'm down for anything, we could go to a bar or dinner again or just chill at one of our places, it's up to you. Did you have anything in mind??

Lauren: Actually, I do

She didn't.

Camila: Yeah?? What is it??

Lauren: ....you'll see! Patience is a virtue, didn't you tell me that tonight?

Camila: Using my own words against me.. wow

Lauren: Lol yuppp anyway I'm exhausted so I'm going to sleep now. Goodnighttt!

Camila: Goodnight Lo!

\---

The idea comes to her Friday, the day before they are supposed to hang out. Lauren had been agonizing about what to do with Camila. She wants to impress the other girl. She wants the other girl to be as amazed by her date as Lauren was with hers. Sure, a dinner in would normally sound relaxing and nice, but Camila set the bar high with her rooftop dinner and ice skating. She doesn't want to seem unoriginal or uncreative.

The moment the idea dawns upon Lauren, she whips out her phone and opens her text conversation with Camila.

They had been texting pretty much nonstop since their first date about everything and nothing at the same time. If something funny happened to Camila, Lauren would be the first person to find out and vice versa. And Camila definitely appreciated the multitude of pictures Lauren sent her of her dog Cooper.

Lauren has just woken up, and this is the first text exchanged thus far for the day:

Lauren: Do you like fish?

Camila: Like to eat?? Not really

Lauren: I meant just like in general as an animal but hold up. Wait a minute. You don't like fish?? Who the fuck are you???

Camila: A girl who likes the simpler things in life like pizza and chicken nuggets

Lauren: Ok that shit is good I'm not gonna lie but you need to expand your horizons. I'll help you

Lauren: Anyway, answer my original question! Thoughts on fish as an animal not a food

Camila: Hmmmmmm you're probs not gonna be able to get me to eat any new food sorry

Camila: I like fishies, they're cute!

Lauren: Fishies... am I dating a 10 year old?

She types that out and hits send without even stopping to read it over. Once the message has already been delivered, Lauren realizes that she just referred to them as "dating" and has an internal panic.

While they have been one date which could constitute their relationship as "dating," was it appropriate to put a label on that? Or are labels not so important in this futuristic society as they were in Lauren's original time? She hits herself on the head, internally scolding herself as she awaits a reply.

Camila: 11 and a half missy get it right

Lauren exhales the breath she didn't know she had been holding. It figures though, Camila doesn't seem like the type of person who would be confrontational or sensitive about something like that. It's not like she called her "girlfriend" or anything.

Lauren: Alright perfect. I'll pick you up tomorrow at 7 pm.

The next day, Lauren spends about thirty minutes gussying herself up for the date. Tonight, her dark hair is pulled into a ponytail that sits near the top of her head. A form-fitting long-sleeved dress with a turtleneck covers her body, reaching down to a couple inches above her knees. Her makeup tonight is less of an intense look as the last date; a glittery rose-gold eyeshadow is dusted on her eyelids, and a light-pink matte lipstick is spread across her still-chapped lips (she hasn't gotten around to buying chapstick yet). And, of course, her highlight is definitely on point.

When she's finally ready, Lauren texts Camila that she is on her way as she starts her luxury car. The car's technology is paired with her phone, so the moment the engine revs to a start, it already knows exactly where she is going thanks to the calendar function that added her date with Camila to her schedule the minute the exact plans were made over text.

Ten minutes later, her car indicates that she has arrived at her destination. She pulls in front of the door of the two-story townhouse. Due to what Lauren assumes to be gentrification, the building styles of most of the neighborhoods in the city are no longer antiquated brick but rather modern and sleek. Much of the townhouses on this street – Camila's included – possess tall windows lining the entire building. Lauren's nosy side can't help but squint and try to see what the interior looks like. The windows are tinted in a way to prevent this exact action, unfortunately for her.

A knock on the passenger window startles Lauren. She turns her head to see Camila standing outside her car, giggling at the fact that she caused her to visibly jump. Lauren unlocks the door and leans over to open it for her.

"Someone's jumpy," Camila laughs as she takes a seat in the car, shutting the door as quickly as possible to prevent the flow of cold air. Her hair is down today, and she looks exactly like she did on the day they met except with a different outfit. Today, she wears a light, tan turtleneck and black jeans, covered by a black parka. Lauren thinks she looks absolutely beautiful.

"How did you get around there without me seeing?! I was watching the door since I pulled up," Lauren furrows her eyebrows in confusion.

"Apparently not close enough," Camila teases her. "Ah, at last, I get to sit in the famous car that I hit. It's really nice though, I don't blame you for almost biting my head off. Did you just get it? It smells pretty new."

"Yeah, it was a, uh, graduation gift," Lauren nods. Technically, if you were really reaching, this is a graduation present.

"Have you named it yet?" Camila asks.

"Name it?" Lauren scrunches up her nose. "When I think of people who name their cars, I picture rednecks who name their trucks that insist on waving the Confederate flag around. Do you have a name for yours?"

"...no," Camila frowns. "I'm uncreative! I couldn't think of a name."

"Well, I'll only name mine if you name yours. But you can't change the name after you come up with it, so better think hard," Lauren begins driving to their destination. She doesn't put it in the GPS – she made the effort to memorize the directions so the GPS' voice wouldn't spoil where they're going.

"I'll get back to you on that one," Camila agrees on the terms. "So, fish, huh? And not the food."

"Fish are friends, not food," Lauren quotes one of Pixar's best movies.

 

"Very true," Camila nods. "You're into older movies, huh?"

Lauren's stomach drops and she definitely almost runs a red light. Shit, she forgot to consider the fact that she was quoting a film from her decade, not this decade. She's not doing so hot on remaining incognito. The good thing is that the government project is highly classified, so Camila coming to the conclusion that she's actually 200 years old is extremely unlikely.

So, she decides to go with it. "Yeah, I love them."

"Interesting," Camila notes. "I'd guess that we're going to the Shedd but they close on 5:30 on Sundays. So, what's the plan?"

"It's a surprise," Lauren smirks.

They are, in fact, going to the Shedd Aquarium, despite the fact that they have already closed for general public. Contrary to the conclusion that one would probably jump to, they're not breaking in. Lauren isn't about to risk getting arrested on her second date with Camila. Yesterday, right after the idea popped into her head, she called them and asked if it was possible to reserve the entire aquarium for just the two of them.

The customer service representative, in a very confused tone, explained that they could book the space for a "corporate event" that would cost upwards of $10,000.

And since money isn't really a concern for Lauren, she said yes without even hesitating. Twenty minutes later of exchanging credit card information, specifying requirements for the event (which was pretty much her saying no to every question about catering), and giving them her contact information, she successfully booked the aquarium for her private "event."

Is it over the top? Absolutely. Is Lauren extra for doing this? Yep. She fully acknowledges and embraces this fact.

The moment they reach the vicinity of Museum Park where the aquarium is, Camila's looks over to Lauren nervously. "Wait... we are going to Shedd? You know they're closed, right?" she asks hesitantly. Knowing that Lauren is new to the city, she assumes that the girl is poor at planning ahead and assumed the aquarium was open all day.

"I know," Lauren says, her lips beginning to curl up into a smug grin.

"A-Are we breaking in?" Camila's eyes widen as she stammers. She's not a super straight-edge person, but she's not particularly into the possibility of being arrested for trespassing. "We can just go tomorrow when it's open, that would be easier. I like fish but not enough to break i—"

"Don't worry, Camila. We're not gonna do anything you're not comfortable with," Lauren places a comforting hand on Camila's lap. Pulling into the parking garage, she is able to park directly near an elevator. "It's your turn to trust me."

"I—" Camila begins to protest, her anxiety spiking. Noticing how her date has turned into a bundle of nerves, Lauren moves her hand to find Camila's. She takes the other girl's smaller hand in her own, tracing small circles on the outer part of Camila's hand with her thumb. This action definitely helps slow Camila's heart rate down to a normal pace, and for the anxiety coursing through her veins to cease its potency. "Okay. I trust you."

"Good," Lauren smiles, talking to her in a soothing voice. Her voice is naturally comforting. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Camila nods confidently. The two of them pull their hands away at the same time as they exit the Audi.

They ascend the elevator in silence. Camila figures that any questions she asks won't be answered because Lauren wants to surprise her, and Lauren figures that the silence might help Camila calm down further. Upon reaching the surface, the walk to the aquarium isn't far.

"Weird to see this place without a line," Camila comments as they approach the steps leading up to the entrance.

"Do you go here a lot?" Lauren inquires.

"It's been a while. I think the last time I was here was when my younger sister and my mom came to visit a year ago," Camila answers. "Sofi loved touching the manta rays so much."

"That's your sister? How old is she?"

"She's eleven now," Camila smiles at the thought of her little sister. "I miss her. I saw her during the summer but I didn't go back for Thanksgiving or Christmas because I don't want to cost my family even more money, especially since my education is pretty expensive."

If Lauren had known Camila back then, she would have paid for her to fly back to Miami in a heartbeat. Which is, admittedly, a bit strange given the short period of time they've known each other for. Lauren supposes that she just likes to give and she loves making other people happy. She would give anything just to see the younger girl smile. She swears her smile is brighter than sunshine.

"You sound very fond of her," Lauren notes. "When's the next time you'll go home? Spring break?"

"Maybe. Or maybe my birthday in March. I could try to get a job and save up some money to fly out," Camila shrugs. "Flying is so expensive now that we have the bullet train. I remember when I was a kid and plane tickets were only $100 or $200 to go travel between major airports."

"Oh yeah... fuck the bullet train," Lauren says cautiously, trying to act like she knows what it is. She makes a mental note to look it up later because she has a feeling that it would be a very bad idea to act like she doesn't know what it is.

Camila sighs and shakes her head at Lauren's remark. "You don't need to pretend to hate it just for me. I know it's a lot more environmentally friendly and efficient and objectively a million times better than planes. I just... can't go on it."

Lauren is curious as to why she can't go on it, but she figures that it's also something to potentially research later. From the way that Camila talks about it, she has a feeling that it's not a topic to pry about especially if they're trying to keep the date lighthearted and positive. "Oh," is all that comes out of her mouth. She internally berates herself for having such a measly response.

They've been standing directly outside of the doors conversing – going inside is a good way to transition from the awkward atmosphere to the rest of the date. Lauren opens the door for Camila, motioning her to walk in first.

The entrance area is completely deserted except for one worker sitting at the front desk where they normally take tickets. "Are you here for the event?" the worker asks as they walk up to him.

Camila looks to Lauren with a confused expression, but Lauren nods with a grin. "Yes, I am."

"Event?" Camila whispers.

"Place your thumb here," he instructs, motioning to a fingerprint scanner. Lauren obliges.

The fingerprint system that is used nationwide is used to prevent stolen identities and fraud. Everyone obtains a state-issued ID at 18 years old regardless of driving license status. The ID is linked to their fingerprint, which is used for identification purposes at bars or situations like this where IDs are required.

Lauren watches the screen as she places her thumb on the scanner. The monitor beeps happily as her ID picture appears on the screen with her name, birthday, and other information.

"Welcome to the Shedd, Ms. Jauregui," he smiles at her. "To confirm, you did not require any catering and requested the Lakeside Terrace, the Coral Reef Underwater Immersive Tube, and the Jellyfish Tanks?"

"Correct," Lauren nods.

"Enjoy your visit," the worker gestures for them to head in.

The moment they walk out of the vicinity of the worker's earshot, Camila turns to Lauren and says, "Holy shit Lauren. I... I'm speechless. You know you didn't have to do this, right? Like... it had to be crazy expensive."

"I know, but I wanted to," Lauren smiles. "Where do you want to go first?"

Camila opens her mouth to protest further but figures it would be useless. Lauren's gesture was extremely nice, however, she would feel guilty if the other girl went to this extent for every date. She won't bring it up unless it becomes a pattern in the future. Instead, she strokes her chin in exaggerated thought as she considers her options, trying to recall what each room is.

The Coral Reef Underwater Immersive Tube is similar to the underwater tube in the Atlanta aquarium, but this one is a much larger scale. The tube is completely submerged in a massive tank, so you have water below you as well as all around you beyond the glass. The Jellyfish Room is a box-shaped room with tanks as large as the ones in the Wild Reef, but these are filled solely with moonlight jellyfish. Finally, the Lakeside Terrace is more of an outdoor venue that is commonly used for weddings and other private events. It's equipped with a bar and has a spectacular view of the skyline, and also has a fire pit. Lauren thought that would be a cute way to end the date, but it's up to Camila.

"Let's go to The Jellyfish Room first," Camila decides. Lauren smiles and locates her hand, taking it in her own as they head toward the exhibit.

Lauren's jaw drops in awe of the beauty of this room. The three walls of the room that aren't connected to the door are the glass of the tank. There is no source of light besides the illumination of the jellyfish. Without them, it would be pitch black – the water itself is extremely dark. There are enough moonlight jellyfish of all sizes that it almost looks like the night sky. Soft piano music plays in the background of the room to enhance the relaxing, nearly surreal atmosphere that is emanating from every aspect.

"Holy shit," Lauren mutters. She feels the urge to whisper, although her voice wouldn't disturb the jellyfish regardless and there isn't anyone else around besides the two of them.

"I've only ever seen this room packed and full of chatter. It's so much more peaceful like this," Camila responds, her voice also in a hushed whisper. "I think... this is what they intended the room to feel like when they designed it."

"It feels like we're in space," Lauren comments. There is a single bench in the center of the room; she leads Camila over to it and they take a seat. Here, they are surrounded evenly by the jellyfish.

"They're like dancing stars," Camila watches the way the jellyfish move in fascination. "If reincarnation is real, I want to become one of them."

"Yeah?" Lauren turns to her, arching an eyebrow.

"Yep," Camila nods assuredly. "They're effortlessly gorgeous. Look at them. They're just living, doing their own thing, yet every movement is graceful and eloquent and peaceful. Hell, jellyfish don't have to worry about midterms or getting a job or any of that material bullshit. Sign me up."

"You're already effortlessly gorgeous, babe," Lauren caresses the exterior of Camila's hand with her thumb, which sits on top of it. "But they're also trapped. Would you still want to be these jellyfish, confined in a box to entertain for the rest of your life? I'm sure jellyfish in the ocean face lots of threats to their life on a daily basis."

"I mean... one could argue that we are confined too," Camila shrugs. "Trapped in society's expectations and hardships and discriminations and norms."

"I like how you think," Lauren raises her eyebrows at the girl's musings.

"It's called bullshitting. I do a lot for my college humanities classes. Sound deep, reach a lot, and use big words then you're all set for an A," Camila says cheerfully.

"Been there, done that," Lauren laughs.

A comfortable silence falls over them as they watch the jellyfish moving around them, nothing but the sound of the music playing in the background. Lauren's gaze moves to Camila out of the corner of her eyes – though the jellyfish are, indeed, spectacular, there's something about Camila in this light that's remarkable.

Her side profile is a dim purple hue from the lighting of the jellyfish. She watches the jellyfish with a look of wonder and awe on her face; her mouth is slightly open with the corners of her lips turned up, and her dark eyes glisten as she looks up at the ones above them in the ceiling. Maybe she is aware or maybe she's oblivious to being the subject of Lauren's gaze, but Camila continues staring up at the animals in pure curiosity and interest.

Lauren laces her fingers with Camila's, which finally breaks the younger girl's unwavering focus. Her eyes lower to meet Lauren's, and in this moment, Camila swears that the galaxies in Lauren's eyes match the extraordinariness of the galaxies of jellyfish surrounding them. Camila's mouth closes and her face breaks out into a full, bashful grin. If the room was well-lit, her face would definitely be flushed.

"Are you ready to go to the next exhibit?" Camila inquires.

"Yeah. We can always go back here if we want to," Lauren nods. "We have until 9:30." Glancing at her phone, the time reads 7:30. Time flies when she's with Camila. "Where to next?"

"Let's go to the underwater tube," Camila suggests.

Upon taking the escalator down into the tube, Lauren feels her heart quicken when she absorbs her surroundings. She's been to the tube in the Atlanta aquarium before, but this transcends into an entirely new level. The glass of the tube is made of a special polymer material that exudes cleanliness. Fingerprints, smudges, and dirt don't affect this glass, which would be the primary concern in an aquarium with thousands of guests each day.

The translucence of the glass is not the only incredible feature of the tube. The tube has to be submerged at least 40 feet underwater – it doesn't feel like they are in an exhibit in an aquarium. It feels as if they are literally in the ocean, somehow defying all rules of biology and physics and walking underwater amongst the fish.

"This is... fuck... I..." Lauren stammers. For someone so normally eloquent at speaking, it's a rare occurrence to be left without words. This is indescribable. She has never experienced something of this scale before. "Wow."

"It's probably my sixth time here, but yeah," Camila giggles at Lauren's reaction. "I still get my breath taken away when I come to this exhibit."

"How is this possible? How long did it take to build? The glass is so fucking clear, it doesn't even look like we're in a tube. How are the fish not, like... running into us thinking that the tube doesn't exist?" Lauren asks a million questions per minute, trying to comprehend how this even works.

"I'm not a science or engineering major so I'm not the right person to ask," Camila shrugs. "I do know that the glass is kind of like... a one-way mirror. But it's not a mirror. They see a black tube and we see... well, them, obviously."

"Wow," Lauren reiterates. Now, she is the one who stares at her surroundings, mouth agape in awe. A massive stingray swims close to the tube, nearly touching its edges. Lauren reaches out and puts her hand on the glass as if she wanted to touch the stingray.

"No hands on the glass!" Camila shouts, causing Lauren to jump and retract her hand. Camila laughs at this reaction, and Lauren's widened eyes narrow. "Just kidding. Gotcha!"

"Oh, you're hilarious," Lauren rolls her eyes, but she can't stop herself from smiling.

The tube is about 200 feet, twice the size of the tube in Atlanta. They slowly walk through, observing all of the different types of marine life surrounding them. A group of dolphins swims together in the distance, a few clownfish relax in their anemone below their feet, and a great white shark lurks only several feet away from their faces. The latter made Lauren back up in slight fear, causing Camila to giggle in her expense again.

"I wish I had brought my camera," Camila sighs. "I never have it when I come here. Even when I know I'm going to come here in advance. I'm pretty forgetful."

"You're into photography?" Lauren raises her eyebrows. Somehow, this girl manages to increase her infatuation every time she speaks.

"Yeah. Nothing like... super professional or anything. Just a hobby I do in my free time," Camila answers. "I thought about minoring in it for a while but I just decided to take a few electives instead."

"That's so cool, you have to show me your work some time," Lauren says; from the way she looks at Camila in this moment, she is practically exuding hearts from her eyes. She has a bit of a boner for women who are talented and artistic. It's right behind her number one turn-on of intelligence, and from her conversations with Camila, she checks every single box.

"Maybe," Camila blushes – she's not the most confident person in her work. "Here's a deal. You sing for me more often, then I'll show you my dark room."

"Hm..." Lauren furrows her eyebrows in consideration. "Fine. Deal."

"I'm excited," Camila winks.

They spend about twenty more minutes in the tube, observing the fish mostly in silence with the occasional comment and excited pointing out of a fish doing something interesting. Finally, they reach the end of the tube and decide to go out to the Lakeside Terrace.

Thankfully for them, the fire pit is already lit and going strong. It's one of the only specifications that Lauren requested when making this reservation because she knew that it would be cold for Camila. Sure enough, the moment they step out into the brisk winter air, Camila's body shivers uncontrollably. They sprint over to the fire pit, where a couple of couches are situated beside some ingredients to roast marshmallows and make s'mores – the only other specification Lauren made.

"Fuck, this feels nice," Camila sighs a breath of relief as the fire heats her up. "I don't get how you're never cold. God, you're not even shivering," she looks at Lauren with envy and disgust.

Lauren shrugs with a smug smirk on her face. "A hoe never gets cold."

"What?" Camila squints.

"Nothing," Lauren berates herself internally for making yet another pop culture reference from her own decade. She makes a note to herself to work on learning the pop culture references of this decade so she can stay up to date and stop saying weird shit in front of Camila. "Do you want my jacket?"

"No, you'd probably die if you took it off," Camila shakes her head. "The fire is warming me up, it's fine."

She reaches for one of the skewers and a marshmallow, stabbing it with the end. It's a fancy skewer that rotates at the press of a button, perfect for roasting marshmallows. "I haven't had s'mores in a loooong time."

"Me too," Lauren grabs her own skewer and marshmallow and holds it over the flames. "How do you like your marshmallows?"

"Black, just like my soul," Camila says in a complete monotone and a poker face. She then proceeds to stick her marshmallow directly into the blue part of the flame near the bottom, igniting it to a crisp and watching it burn.

Lauren watches with horror. "R-Really?"

"Nah," Camila laughs and shakes the burnt item off of her skewer. "Wow, that was a waste of a marshmallow. The things one does to carry out a joke," she mutters under her breath, retrieving a new marshmallow.

"I was gonna say... you're killing it," Lauren pouts, watching the remains of the burnt marshmallow decompose in the flames.

"Nah, I'm a normal human being. When it comes to marshmallows, at least. The rest? Maybe not," Camila holds her new marshmallow the same distance above the flames as Lauren, pressing the button that makes it rotate to evenly brown every side of it.

A couple minutes later when their marshmallows are the perfect shade of golden brown, they create their own s'mores with graham crackers and chocolate bars. Lauren specified for a quality chocolate, too – not Hershey's, the inferior chocolate bar of them all. They happily munch on the sandwiches and admire the beauty of the Chicago skyline at night.

"Have I told you that you're amazing yet? Because you are," Camila compliments Lauren. "This is so fucking cool. And these s'mores are bomb."

"What was that? I didn't quite catch that, I'm.. amazing or something/ Mind repeating that a few times?" Lauren says with a cocky grin. Camila rolls her eyes and slaps her arm. "Seriously though, thank you. I'm glad that you like it."

Camila finishes her s'more first. She practically inhaled it because it was so delicious. Lauren finishes hers shortly after and the two of them sit in silence, staring out into the skyline. Camila scoots closer, leaning her head on the older girl's shoulder and glancing up at Lauren's expression to make sure this move is okay.

When Camila snuggles closer to her, Lauren feels her body reacting again. Her heart quickens, her cheeks flush, and a feeling of warmth radiates beneath her skin. Lauren closes her eyes and smiles, resting her head against Camila's. Never leave, she says in her mind. She wants to be around Camila forever. It's only around this girl that she is one hundred percent certain that she is alive. Her body only presents some semblance of being human when she is with her.

Lauren moves her head off of Camila's head to look down directly at her. "Camila," she says in a soft tone.

Lifting her head to a normal position, Camila asks, "Yeah?"

"You have some..." Lauren gestures to her own lips to show her. "S'mores. On your lips." She giggles at the sight of the chocolate and marshmallow goop on the corner of her mouth.

"Oh," Camila reaches to her mouth, attempting to wipe it off but missing.

"Here, let me," Lauren brushes the corner of Camila's mouth with her thumb gently, removing the residue. With her fingers resting on Camila's chin to tilt her face up toward her more, she brushes the bottom of her soft lips, staring at them in desire.

Their eyes meet, and without words, they tell everything that's necessary. They want each other. They want this, now.

And that's when their heads naturally gravitate closer to one another, their lips finally meeting again. Their mouths move in perfect synchrony and rhythm, and right during this moment, a firework explodes in the sky.

They both pull back in shock, turning toward the noise in awe. The firework was shot off somewhere in the distance.

"Alright, did you plan that?" Camila looks at Lauren with an accusatory expression.

"No, I swear," Lauren puts her hands up. "I'm extra but not that extra."

Camila studies Lauren for a few seconds before accepting that she's telling the truth. "I would have been impressed if you did."

"Then... I did," Lauren smirks. She didn't.

"Shut up," Camila leans forward into another kiss to shut Lauren up again. One of her hands rests on the back of Lauren's neck and the other tangling in her hair as this kiss transcends the passion that they reached in their first kisses. This time, there's no one to interrupt them and there's no ice to fall on. It's just the two of them, and for once, it's perfect.

They lose themselves in each other; in this moment, the only light illuminating them is from the fire and the moon. With every kiss, Lauren feels as if her soul ignites. Camila touches her cheek, her arm, her back, and every point of contact radiates with warmth. She shakes, with what could be perceived from Camila as nerves, but actually from happiness. From excitement. From feeling, blushing, smiling between kisses, heart pounding, blood pulsing, head spinning.

From living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i originally posted this story on 5hff/wattpad and decided to post it here to hopefully reach a wider audience. leave comments and let me know what you think, and you can also reach me on twitter or curiouscat. i love feedback and greatly appreciate it!
> 
> -natalie (@liabilitymila, curiouscat.me/liabilitymila)


	6. Chapter 6

 

“Day 75

When I first woke up into this new lifetime, I didn’t dream. Like, literally. I’d fall asleep every night, experience nothingness, and it would be morning. In my original lifetime, I dreamt _all_ the time, so this was weird. I missed dreaming… even the nightmares. Because after a nightmare, you wake up and yeah, you might be a little panicked at first, but then it washes over you that it wasn’t real. You’re ok, it was just a dream, and your life is _not_ that universe. 

Dreaming… another human experience, taken away from me. 

I dreamt for the first time again last night. I forgot what it felt like — the surreal sensation of everything.How, when you wake up, it’s like a distant memory. Vague recollections of a vacation from a year ago or whatever. But most of all, when you dream, some of the feelings you experienced in the dream linger. When I’d dream about dating some random classmate or someone I barely knew, I’d wake up feeling _connected_ to them for some inexplicable reason. Like we dated in a past life or something, and the feeling would only last the day, but I’d always get the urge to get to know them better. I’d fight the urge to approach them, ask them to grab coffee with me to fulfill the curiosities sparked by what was most likely just random firing of neurons in my brain that produced that dream. 

The feeling would always go the opposite way as well. If I dreamt about a friend fucking me over, I’d wake up pissed at them for the day even though it was _completely_ unjustified. 

Anyway, I missed those experiences. When I woke up, I was reminded of what it felt like to dream. 

I dreamt about _her._ About Camila. 

The exact details about the dream aren’t relevant, really. What matters is what I felt when I woke up. I almost can’t describe the sensation. It was so strange… my body was physically reacting like it usually does when we kiss, but it was a hundred times more intense. My heart was racing, my stomach was flipping, my hands were shaking a bit, and my cheeks were flushing so fucking hard. 

My emotions haven’t completely returned, obviously. They come in short bursts. Bursts of happiness when I spend time with her, mild bursts of irritation if something pisses me off… the usual. When I don’t have these bursts, I can tell they’re there, begging to be felt. They feel like ghosts. I’d say when I woke up they were at a 0, in my past lifetime they were at 100… and now they’re maybe at a 35. 

When I felt my body doing what it did this morning, I was almost convinced it was my body remembering how to feel. Then it faded so quickly like every other burst.

I hope they come back soon. She really does make me enjoy living. I can only imagine what it will feel like when my body will allow the happiness to prevail.”

A month had passed since Lauren and Camila’s first couple of dates, and their relationship has done nothing but grow. They’ve been on countless dates, everything from the typical dinner and a movie to indoor skydiving. Camila has also shown her a handful of her favorite date spots around the city. While Lauren has not yet seen Camila’s apartment, she invited Camila back to her place exactly once: Valentine’s Day. 

They didn’t do anything _too_ huge, which is a bit ironic considering how Lauren literally rented out the entire Shedd Aquarium for their _second_ date. After that date, she got the feeling that Camila felt a bit intimidated that she didn’t have the resources possible for such a grand gesture. Nonetheless, Lauren still insists that Camila’s date ideas are far superior to her own. 

On Valentine’s Day, Lauren took Camila out to dinner at a hip Italian restaurant, followed by a trip to the Adler Planetarium. They snuck in a bottle of red wine by transferring its contents to their reusable non-translucent water bottles. After an hour and a half or so of the cosmos paired with their own original drinking game (“Take a drink every time you see a planet”), Lauren was relieved that they were relying on public transportation that night. By the time they exited the planetarium, they were both delightfully intoxicated to the point where they definitely would not be able to operate a vehicle safely. Lauren invited Camila back to her apartment, and though the girl spent the night, they didn’t have sex. 

They got close. But Lauren still didn’t feel as though the time was right. It wasn’t even so much that she was nervous — she never got nervous when it came to sex. It was just a _feeling_ that she wasn’t ready yet, which couldn’t be further from how she couldn’t go more than three dates without pouncing on whoever she was seeing at the time. 

Lauren feels that she’ll be ready soon. Until then, she’s content with just kissing. She secretly wonders if the experiment killed her sex drive; she knows that she can still climax and enjoy sexual pleasure, but there’s no longer the innate urge to satiate her sexual needs. Simply put: she doesn’t really get horny anymore. Even when Camila was on top of her in her bed, straddling her hips, hungrily stealing kisses from Lauren while softly moaning, Lauren didn’t feel much down there. Since she’s had success with masturbation, though, she’s sure that once they get started, she’d have no trouble climaxing and enjoying every second of it.

They’re also not _official_ yet. Lauren supposes she would define their relationship as “dating” — they’re technically not officially _exclusive_ either, but there’s an unsaid shared feeling between them that they have no interest in seeing anyone other than each other. Lauren figures that she’s probably going to be the one to ask Camila to be her girlfriend. She’s torn between just asking her casually on the next date and planning a special night for the occasion.

Today, however, Lauren isn’t thinking about that. 

Today is the day that a handful of the test subjects arranged a meet-up. One of the test subjects gauged interest for this event on the private social media platform developed to connect them and allow them to communicate with one another to discuss the experiment away from public servers where the information could potentially be leaked by a skilled hacker. After about 20 test subjects, including Lauren, responded that this is something that they would be interested in, the test subject arranged the time and place for the gathering that worked best with everyone’s schedules.

The host of the gathering was assigned a townhouse just outside of the central business district, and he figured this would be the perfect place for the meeting, considering anywhere in public would be subject to potential eavesdropping. Hearing people next to your table in a café talking about how life is different in 2218 compared to 2018 would be an eyebrow raiser. 

By the time Lauren arrives, it appears that mostly everyone is there except a few people. The amount of people isn’t the first thing that Lauren notices when she walks in the room, though. 

When she enters the room, it almost seems like there’s an entire shift in the atmosphere. Outside, there are shouts of kids playing in the snow who just arrived home from school for the day, the soft sound of wind blowing the trees, and the combined footsteps of people taking their dogs for a walk. It’s the sounds, sights, and smells of life. Inside, the atmosphere is devoid of almost anything that would signify life existing within the area.

Lauren is aware that sometimes, rooms are just quiet and not lively. Dentist offices, for example, are not areas where one would expect a lot of activity. But here, it’s not even that people aren’t talking. In small groups around the living room, test subjects converse with one another in soft tones. Perhaps it’s just the aura of everyone combined, creating a dull, lifeless environment.

She observes the room. The gender ratio is pretty much equal, and no one in the room appears to be above thirty years old. Almost everyone has dark circles under their eyes as if they haven’t gotten a full night of sleep in the last month, and their eyes are all glassed —

“Hi. Thank you for coming to the meet-up, my name is Tim. I organized this little event.”

Her observations are interrupted by a man who can’t be more than a year older than herself introducing himself. He extends a hand, and Lauren shakes it only to be met with an extremely passive, weak grip. Though he maintains steady eye contact with her, it feels as if his gaze is wandering. His voice is flat; it’s not even so much a monotone, it just appears to lack character. She wonders if he’s just a strange man.

“Thanks for having us over,” Lauren responds with a smile. “I’m Lauren.”

“Please, have a seat in the living room. I think we’re gonna start with introductions soon,” he gestures to the area where everyone is gathered. It does appear that the seating is arranged in a bit of a circle with couches, dining chairs, and recliners.

“Oh, is this like… an AA setup? Like, I’ll be like, ‘Hi, I’m Lauren’ and everyone will say ‘Hi Lauren’ in a cult-like unison?” Her own joke makes her chuckle a bit. 

“Um… I suppose a bit? I don’t want every meet-up to be like this in the future; I just thought it would be a good starter. See where everyone is. Share stories. You know.” His response is mellow, and he doesn’t even pretend to chuckle at Lauren’s joke. 

“…Sounds good,” Lauren nods and heads toward an empty couch hastily. Any further conversation with this guy would lull her to sleep. Plus, the fact that he didn’t even crack the tiniest smile at her joke? Tough crowd.

She hopes that it’s an isolated case, and tries striking up a conversation with the girl sitting in the recliner adjacent to her. 

“Your necklace is dope, where did you get it?” Lauren compliments the girl’s necklace that displays a constellation she assumes to be the girl’s zodiac sign. 

“Thanks. It was a gift,” the girl shrugs, her voice sharing the same flat qualities as Tim. Upon hearing this, Lauren almost experiences a chill — the reason why she felt a shift in the air is beginning to dawn on her. 

Before Lauren can introduce herself and try to gauge if she has any more personality than she’s initially letting on, Tim takes a seat on a dining chair and speaks up to get everyone’s attention. “Alright everyone, I think we’re missing one or two people, but they can just hop in if they show up. Let’s get started with brief introductions then we can move on to discuss how we’ve been feeling. I’ll start. I’m Tim, ’24’ years old. I graduated from Brown University with a degree in politics. Hoping to use the incentives we got to eventually go to law school.”

He nods to the man sitting next to him, indicating for him to introduce himself. He’s a young Asian-American man who looks like he could have a sweet smile, yet with the lack of any expression on his face, Lauren doubts she’ll see even the slightest hint of anything but a straight face. 

“Nathan. ’22.’ I went to UC Berkeley, got a bachelor’s in comp-sci. I don’t know why I didn’t take up Google’s offer. Guess this opportunity just seemed cooler,” he lets out a sigh, a beat passing. “I should have taken them up on that offer.”

Next is a young white woman who Lauren might even consider attractive if she were to meet her in a different circumstance, like a bar. Even then, the lifelessness of her presence makes it hard to consider her _anything_. 

“The name’s Val. I was 27 when I went under. I had just completed med school at Duke… the debt would have followed me around for the rest of my life. So… yeah.”

It’s almost disturbing to Lauren how their voices could all blend and sound nearly the same from the same dull quality that they all share. She begins to wonder if she also sounds like that, and she’s just not aware of it. She makes a point to subtly find a way to ask Camila about it next time she sees her.

There’s a long pause with no one speaking. “Uh, I think you’re next,” Val nudges her. 

“Oh! Sorry, I was a bit spaced out,” Lauren apologizes with a short laugh.

Perhaps she doesn’t need to figure out how to ask Camila if her speaking voice makes her sound like she’s a zombie. The moment the embarrassed laughter escapes her mouth, everyone’s heads whip toward her, even the people who were lost in their own thoughts. It’s clear that no one in this room had expressed even the tiniest emotion until now.

“Anyway, hey. I’m Lauren. ’23’ I think? I lose track sometimes… I’d have to think about my age back then too if you asked me. Except when I was 21. _Very_ proud of that age,” she chuckles again at her own joke, only to be met with more stares. “I got my undergrad degree in psych. I think I want to go back for a masters, but I’m not sure yet, just taking it day by day.”

She nods to the next person with a smile, letting them know they can take their turn.

Before they can say anything, Nathan speaks up. His voice isn’t accusing or even curious; it still holds the flat tone that was present in everyone else. “Lauren, do you have your emotions back?”

“…Kind of? I don’t know. It’s definitely more than what I woke up with. They’re a lot less muted, and I get bursts of what I used to be able to feel from time to time. I wouldn’t say they’re _back_ , but…” 

She’s about to finish that sentence by saying something along the lines of “…but it seems like it’s a lot more than you guys have,” though she catches herself before that slips out of her mouth. That would just be insensitive. On the other hand… if their emotions are still at a zero, _technically_ they wouldn’t get offended…

She isn’t granted the opportunity to even give into these temptations because another girl who hasn’t introduced herself yet asks, “How is that possible? I’ve tried everything. Drugs. Sex. Hurting myself. And what do I feel? Nothing _._ Not even just one moment of anything. What’s your secret?”

Though the girl’s words are intense, her voice conveys no emotion. The others nod in agreement, and even though their faces are solemn, Lauren has a feeling that they aren’t truly experiencing any pain at all. She recalls her own first month of apathy; her perception of time and reality skewed, and she felt as if her soul was no longer there. That it had gotten lost somewhere in translation between her first life and her new one. She can’t imagine going back to that time in her life.

“I… I don’t know. I haven’t really talked to anyone about it, I haven’t gone to any of the researchers. I didn’t know that others hadn’t been experiencing a return of feeling like I have,” Lauren frowns. “I have a theory? It sounds stupid. It doesn’t make any sense, scientifically, you’re going to think I’m crazy. I think it all started when this girl hit my car with her’s. I felt so _angry_ , I don’t remember the last time I felt that pissed off. I went home, sat there for a few days trying to get that emotion back to see if it was just an illusion or a one-time thing… and nothing. So I called her up for a date and… every time that we’re together, I feel. I feel more and more every time we’re together. It’s like she’s my medicine.”

“You’re saying that love is the cure?” one of the male test subjects raises his eyebrow in disbelief. While most of the group murmurs in agreement with him that it sounds absurd, Tim concurs with her. 

“I did overhear my caretaker speaking with another caretaker not too long ago. Didn’t overhear the whole conversation, but they were talking about something that sounded like that. A few of the test subjects have been reporting the return of emotions upon meeting someone special,” Tim recalls. 

“I’ve been on dates. A lot, actually. Why haven’t my emotions come back?” the girl who questioned Lauren earlier crosses her arms.

“I don’t know. I’m only telling you what I heard,” Tim shrugs. When the girl looks to Lauren for an answer, she also answers with only a shrug. 

After a silence that almost feels painful, the introductions resume. Lauren barely pays attention to them as they all begin to blur together. All of them were recently graduated students, whether that be from undergraduate or post-graduate study. The introductions progressively become more personal, with test subjects opening up about how they also engaged in harmful behaviors to attempt to elicit some type of feeling.

Once the introductions are over and the floor is open to discussion about anything, Val is the first to speak. “I’m just gonna say what we’re probably all thinking. I don’t think any of us are fucking alive. I wake up every day and it feels like I’m in limbo. Even if this is real, if this isn’t some type of hell we’re being subjected to for volunteering our bodies for something so unnatural, this isn’t living. The humanity has been stripped from all of us… well, almost all of us,” — she glances briefly at Lauren when she says this — “so I don’t see what the point is to continue ‘living.’”

The room breaks out in assenting statements from the group.

“I died 200 years ago. I wasn’t reborn two months ago, I woke up in Hell. This isn’t me.” 

“The closest thing I get to feeling is getting off. That lasts five seconds. I’ve started hooking up with anyone I can find just to feel again. I feel like a sex addict.”

“I heard that 14 test subjects have already offed themselves.”

“Really? Maybe they have the right idea. Maybe they’re the ones who woke up in the future, and we’re just stuck in this purgatory until we follow their lead.”

Lauren has never felt more uncomfortable. Not only is the overwhelming negativity of the room drowning her — the way they are talking about suicide is beginning to sound like they’re about to make a cult-like suicide pact. She doesn’t want any part of this any longer. While everyone seems to be distracted with discussing the potential perks of 'killing themselves to truly wake up,’ Lauren attempts to discreetly stand up and exit the building.

“Too good for the rest of us?” one of the female test subjects interrupts her exit, her words directing everyone’s attention to Lauren.

Lauren opens her mouth to try to defend herself or apologize, but she’s speechless.

“Whatever. Run away, we obviously don’t care,” the dull nature of her voice is almost more sinister than if she were angry.

Lauren doesn’t hesitate to take the girl’s invitation to leave. Swinging open the door, she’s about to bolt out when she runs into a girl who was just about to ring the doorbell, knocking her over face down. 

“O-Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Lauren stammers an apology, extending a hand to help the girl up. She assumes that it’s one of the test subjects who was running late to the meet-up. “I didn’t see you there…”

“ _Jesus_ , how fucking hard is it to use your eyes,” the girl begins to turn over, her voice conveying an unusual amount of rage for what happened.

That voice… no. It can’t be. There’s no way.

The girl swats Lauren’s hand away, gradually picking herself up from the ground and moving her hair out of her face. It’s in that moment that Lauren is staring into the eyes of someone she hasn’t seen in over 200 years. The eyes of her first real love and her first heartbreak. Someone who disappeared from her life without another word, someone she thought she would never see again.

“Lucy?” Lauren whispers. 

“ _Lauren?_ ” the anger dissipates from Lucy’s face the moment she recognizes her ex-lover. They stare at each other for what seems like millennia, and Lucy’s shock quickly changes into a multitude of emotions. Tears gather at the surface of her eyes, threatening to spill over as her lip quivers. This only seems to add to her confusion, as she wipes at the moisture that is accumulating on her cheeks. “What the fuck… what’s happening to me?” 

Lauren’s not sure why her body decides to react how it does, but before she knows it, she’s sprinting away from Lucy as fast as her legs will carry her to her car parked down the street. She doesn’t think that she has ever run this fast in her entire life, not even when she played softball. Her hands trembling, she starts her car and speeds away from the house, not daring to look back. 

——

When Lauren reaches her apartment, she beelines straight for her bed, her comfort space. Collapsing on the mattress face first, she groans into her duvet. Her heart is still pounding from the rush of it all, but her brain is having trouble processing what just happened.

She’s lucky that her emotions are still relatively muted. If she had run into Lucy out of the blue like that after their breakup, she probably would have had a panic attack and gone into a full-on breakdown. Now, she just feels confused in every way possible. Countless questions swirl around her head — was that real? Did that happen? Was that really Lucy? Did they clone her? Is that why she disappeared and Lauren couldn’t find her _anywhere_ post-breakup? 

Her phone buzzes in her pocket, the unexpected noise causing her heart to skip a beat and eliciting a gasp. When she withdraws it and glimpses at the display, the text reads “1 new message: Camila.”

Taking a deep breath and remembering the girl who has unknowingly been helping her through the motions of everything, Lauren is determined that she won’t let Lucy get in the way of any of it. There’s no way for Lucy to find Lauren, right? Lucy’s never been the type of person to _stalk_ someone — Lauren will admit that she, herself, could probably have been considered the ‘crazier’ one in the relationship. Pushing her ex out of her thoughts, she unlocks her phone to read the message.

Camila: Hey- whatcha up to right now? 

 

Even such a short message that doesn’t even have much substance in it causes Lauren’s stomach to flutter. Sometimes, she can’t believe how much power this girl has over her.

Lauren: I’m just chillin at home, you?

Lauren wonders if Camila is about to suggest they hang out, which would be a great way to take her mind off of the events of the day. Now that Lauren has witnessed firsthand how the other test subjects are faring, she couldn’t be more grateful for the other girl’s presence in her life.

Learning that other test subjects who _have_ been going on dates haven’t had their emotions return is a curious fact. Camila must be extremely special then, and Lauren is lucky to have encountered her. She’s never been so happy to have gotten into a car accident before. As she reminisces about her time with the younger girl, Lauren begins to consider that she might actually be falling in l—

The buzzer to her apartment rings, not allowing her to finish that thought. (And she’s glad she couldn’t finish it… she can’t be _that_ whipped already, can she?)

“Guess whooooo,” her favorite voice emits from the speaker.

Lauren’s lips curl up into a huge grin as she lifts herself off of her bed and heads into the entryway to buzz Camila in.

“I’m not interested in hearing about Mormonism, sorry,” Lauren responds to the buzzer.

“Wait, Lauren, it’s me! Camila!” Camila, oblivious to Lauren’s dry joke, shouts desperately.

“I know, silly,” Lauren giggles, buzzing her into the building.

A few moments later, when she opens the door to see Camila standing there with a single red rose and a box of Lauren’s favorite chocolates. What makes this a thousand times more special is that Camila wasn’t even aware of how bad Lauren’s day was; could she sense it somehow? 

“Camila, this is so sweet. Thank you,” Lauren accepts the gifts, pulling the smaller girl into a tight embrace, sinking into her arms. They say that hugs release endorphins that boost your mood, and this was exactly what Lauren needed. “You don’t know how much this means. I really needed this today. What’s the occasion?”

“I was doing errands in the neighborhood and figured I’d stop in and surprise you just ‘cause,” Camila answers with a nonchalant shrug. “I missed your smile. And your voice.” 

“We just saw each other yesterday,” Lauren teases her, setting the gifts down on a nearby coffee table as the two move to her living room.

“And?” Camila grins, biting her lip as she gazes into her favorite green eyes. She delicately places a hand on Lauren’s cheek, beckoning the older girl toward her until their lips meet in a soft, sensual kiss that lasts only a few seconds before she pulls away with a smirk. “I missed that the most, I think.”

“I missed that too,” Lauren agrees, her voice softer, reflecting how exhausted she feels after the day she’s had. Her throat aches — it’s a sensation she’s experienced several times in the past month. It’s the feeling you would normally experience before you’re about to cry, or when you’re holding tears in, but for Lauren, these tears never come out. Instead, she just experiences the strange sensation in her throat, no matter how hard she tries to push the tears out.

Camila has always been a perceptive person when it comes to picking up other people’s emotions. From the moment Lauren opened the door, she could tell something was off, and these past few moments only confirmed it more. Perhaps it was the fogginess of her eyes, the slightest quiver of her bottom lip, or how her voice wasn’t as bright as it normally is with her. Nonetheless, she rubs Lauren’s arm to soothe her, and asks, “Is everything alright, Lo?”

“I’m just tired,” Lauren shrugs her off.

Camila knows that’s not the truth. Hell, she’s deflected people’s concerns with that excuse countless times before. “Babe, you know you can tell me anything. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, we can talk about something else, or if you want to be alone right now, I can leave.”

“No, don’t leave,” Lauren speaks quickly, fearing that she’s pushing Camila away.

“Okay, I won’t. But I care about you a lot, and if you ever need an ear, I’m right here.”

They sit in silence for a few moments as Lauren ponders whether or not to confess what’s bothering her to Camila, and also how to phrase it. While she does want to confide in the other girl, it’s not exactly like she can tell her how she’s part of a research group where her interactions with the other test subjects were like something out of a horror movie. Or how she encountered her first love who shouldn’t even be alive right now because Lauren was sure that everyone from her lifetime was far gone, especially her. An easy simplification of the problem comes to her.

“I ran into my ex today,” Lauren sighs, allowing her walls to come down. “We dated when I was in LA, and last I knew, she was living there. So seeing her here in Chicago was… jarring. She was literally the last person I expected to see. I ran into her — like, I actually knocked her over — then when I realized it was her, I just… panicked. I sprinted away. _God_ , I sound so pathetic.”

“You don’t. Trust me, if I ran into an ex when I was least expecting it, I’d probably run away too,” Camila assures her, taking Lauren’s hand and rubbing the back of it with her thumb. “Bad ex, I’m guessing? You don’t need to tell me any more if you’re not comfortable.”

“It wasn’t toxic or abusive or anything. Just a messy breakup. I mean, we were never _official_ because I was stupid and didn’t want to put a label on it… but it was essentially a breakup either way. I was pretty sure I’d never see her again. Obviously I don’t have any leftover feelings or anything, it was just so unexpected, I think that’s why I’m so shaken from it all.”

“I understand,” Camila nods. “Chicago is a big city. Maybe she was just here on vacation. Hopefully you won’t run into her again — the odds would be in your favor, honestly. If you somehow do, it won’t be as jarring as the first time, and I’ll be here for you.”

“Yeah… you’re right.” Lauren lets a breath out that she didn’t know she was holding. “Thanks for listening, Camila. You made me feel a lot better, with this and the gifts and just being here with me. You always do. I’m here if you ever need to rant, too.”

“Of course,” Camila smiles. 

Three words sit in Lauren’s mouth that threaten to spill out if she’s not careful. Three words that shouldn’t be uttered, because they’re not official yet. For all Lauren knows, Camila doesn’t want anything serious. She doesn’t want to ruin anything by doing or saying anything irrational. So instead, to keep herself from saying these words, she leans in toward Camila and meets the other girl’s lips with her own. 

It starts off slow first, just like all of their other make-out sessions. Camila is, by far, the best kisser out of everyone Lauren has kissed in her lifetime; Camila shares this feeling about Lauren. Their mouths move in perfect synchrony, each adjusting their pace, amount of tongue, and style effortlessly to match one another. 

Lauren loves how Camila will sometimes nibble lightly on her bottom lip, and Camila adores the softness of Lauren’s lips — she swears that this is what kissing a cloud would feel like. As the minutes pass, their kissing becomes steadily more heated. Lauren pulls Camila on top of her lap, the smaller girl’s legs straddling her waist. It’s in these moments that Lauren knows _exactly_ what she wants, and can’t imagine waiting a second longer.

“Take me, Camila,” she whispers in Camila’s ear, her voice hungry and desperate. “I want you so fucking bad.”

“Are you sure?” Camila leans back and studies Lauren’s gaze. She stares up at her with half-lidded eyes filled with desire, nodding eagerly. “Right here? Or the bed?”

Though Lauren wants her enough that she’d be content with getting off right on this couch, the bed is probably a far superior idea. Instead of communicating this to Camila through words, she instead stands up with the other girl’s legs wrapped around her waist, carrying her across the apartment to her bedroom. 

When they reach the bed, Lauren nearly throws Camila onto the mattress. Half of this was trying to be sexy, but in all honesty, the other half was because she hasn’t been working out — Camila is a petite girl, however Lauren hasn’t been working out. She distracts from her labored breaths by crawling on top of the younger girl, hungrily crashing their lips together. 

Lauren moves her kisses from her lips to her jaw, then to her neck, a sensitive spot for Camila — the other girl moans softly, her hands traveling under Lauren’s shirt to unhook her bra in one efficient motion. Lauren leans back momentarily to allow Camila to remove her shirt and bra from her body, then performs the same favor on Camila. 

For a few seconds, they make no movements. They simply stare at each other’s bodies in admiration — Lauren licks her lips as she takes in the perfect shape of Camila’s small breasts, and Camila appreciates Lauren’s sexy curves.

As Lauren’s hand begins to wander to unbutton Camila’s jeans, her wrist is roughly grabbed by the other girl. Lauren’s eyes widen with confusion — did Camila change her mind?

“No. You’re coming first,” Camila states, her voice firm as she rolls them over on the bed so she is on top of Lauren. 

Oh.

Oh, _yes_.

“O-Okay,” Lauren stammers. What she thought earlier about how she couldn’t exactly get _turned on_? Those notions have been thrown out of the window. She feels her center begin to pool with wetness, her core literally _tingling_ with anticipation. She wants Camila to touch her immediately, she can barely take another second without it.

Camila removes all of the clothing on Lauren’s bottom half first, then her own. She doesn’t even need to touch her to gauge how wet she is — she can see it with her own eyes. Licking her lips with a smirk, she decides that teasing Lauren will be _far_ more satisfying than quickly getting her off.

Leaning down, Camila begins to work her way down to Lauren’s crotch with a trail of kisses. She sucks on each of the Cuban’s hard nipples for several moments, her hands caressing the bottom and insides of her thighs but never daring to actually touch her where she wants it most. Once she reaches her pelvis, she kisses Lauren’s hips, lower stomach, and thighs, her tongue nearly reaching Lauren’s core but never quite getting there. 

Desperate, Lauren thrusts her hips toward Camila, wordlessly begging her to touch her. She even attempts sliding her own hand to her crotch, only for it to be pinned down on the mattress by Camila. 

“ _Please_ ,” Lauren whimpers. Her voice cracks. “I… I need you…”

“What do you need?” Camila looks up at Lauren, arching an eyebrow. 

“I need you to touch me,” Lauren begs. “Please…”

“Well, since you said please,” Camila smirks.

She doesn’t penetrate her. No, she can’t give her that satisfaction quite yet. Instead, she lowers her head between Lauren’s thighs, removes her hands that were keeping Lauren’s wrists down, and spreads the other girl’s labia to better expose her clit. She applies a small amount of pressure by pressing the labia gently inward against the clit with both of her thumbs, eliciting a gasp from Lauren. Then, she flattens her tongue against her clit, holding it there but not moving it. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Lauren curses, grinding her hips to press Camila’s tongue harder against her clit. She’s allowed to do this for a few moments before Camila holds her hips down. 

Camila then begins to slowly alternate between two motions with her mouth — first, she sucks on Lauren’s clit lightly in short bursts. Then, she flits her tongue against the small member in tiny circles. Sometimes, she combines both of these motions, both sucking and licking at once. Combining these motions elicits the loudest moans from the older girl.

“I’m close,” Lauren gasps, her hips bucking and eyes shutting tightly from the building pleasure.

Camila inserts two fingers into Lauren’s center as she continues to suck and lick on her clit, her fingers curling up inside her with a ‘come hither’ motion against the rough spot inside of her. As the pleasure starts to overwhelm Lauren, she opens her eyes and gazes at Camila as she becomes undone.

To describe her climax as an undoing couldn’t be more accurate. When the pleasure releases throughout her body, causing Lauren to scream Camila’s name until her throat hurts, this is not the only thing in her body that is released. 

Her moans of pleasure transform into weeping moans as her body is wracked by heavy sobs, her face being drowned by tears. Every single emotion that she has not been able to fully express or feel in the past couple months surges through her at once.

The anger. The frustration of not feeling like herself anymore. The irritation from being ostracized by the test subjects — the only people alive in this world that can understand her have ‘othered’ her. Though emotionless, their empty stares as she shared how she has begun to feel again were heavier than glares. 

The fear. The sheer terror of how she was not sure for a while whether she was alive or not. The constant questioning of if the experiment will one day fail her; for all she or the researchers know, her organs could very well fail her without any warning. That’s the territory of being the pilot group in an experiment like this.

The sorrow. The overwhelming loneliness of it all. Everyone she ever loved: her family, her friends, everyone from her first lifetime — gone, forever. She’ll never be able to say goodbye to them. She’ll never hear their laughter again, and she’ll never be able to cry on their shoulders. She’ll never taste her mom’s cooking or sit on the porch with her dad late at night, talking about life. She never watched her brother or her sister graduate from school and chase after their dreams. She’ll never be able to tell them how proud she is of them. She’ll never be able to apologize to her family for causing such irreversible, lasting, aching, excruciating pain. 

But most of all, the loving. The healing from her brokenness, a brokenness that was so deeply present within her that she wasn’t even previously aware of how much pain she was in. How each day she has spent with Camila has brought her joy — joy that she does not believe she deserves. Though she does not view herself worthy of this joy, life grants her another chance. A chance to make up for her mistakes. A chance to embrace this love instead of pushing it away and running from it. A chance for happiness. Happiness that encourages her to not only get out of bed every day, but to find meaning in everything. 

She hurts again. Fears again. Feels the pent up anger rushing through her veins, her heart racing from the adrenaline. And then she loves again. Her heart calms as Camila holds her sobbing body, and she allows herself to love her. To trust her.

She never wants to let her go.

She’s not sure how long she’s been crying for when the tears finally begin to slow. Her muscles relax into Camila’s embrace as she’s finally able to breathe steadily once more. 

With one arm still wrapped around Lauren, Camila reaches onto the bedside table to grab a tissue, drying the other girl’s eyes and face. “Are you okay?”

“I am now.”

And Camila has no idea the extent to how much Lauren means it when she says that. 


End file.
